


For better or for worse

by poetoutofthebeast



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Brain Damage, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, benrey almost fucking dies like 7 times, benrey can be good as a treat, benrey has autism dont @ me, character almost suffocated my bad, gordon gets his arm back because he deserves it, gordon is so dense its pretty much homophobia, harmful stimming im projecting, i keep writing things and forgetting im so sorry my memory is the worst, its MY fic and i say gordon and benrey can get along, kind of possession yknow its weirdddd, lots of me projecting thats my bad, p a i n, possibly dereality, self-harm but its pretty mild i guess, talkin bout death, theres some uhh medical stuff in here i am pretty sure i forgot to mention that my bad, these tags are a mess im sorry, these tags probably make it seem more overwhelming or underwhelming i fr cant tell, you call it slowburn i call it 'im afraid of writing romance'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetoutofthebeast/pseuds/poetoutofthebeast
Summary: Imagine fucking up the game over screen of a video game resulting in you having to team up with this weird ass alien to get out of this new world.Yeah, couldn't be Gordon.(General CW for blood, injury, violence, swearing, and like a lot of other stuff my bad)(Probably really bad and out of character but I tried my best yknow)
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, eventually... - Relationship, other background shipping lol blink and ya miss
Comments: 61
Kudos: 154





	1. Ayo first chapter lets goo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry
> 
> i used a wheel website to ask whether or not i should post this because of otherthinking and my anxiety disorder and it said post it (granted the only options were 'post it' and 'post it but in a different colour') so fuck it im posting this

Jesus Christ. 

It had taken Gordon Freeman 20 minutes to sit up and adjust to his surroundings. And just like the experiment at the beginning of his shift that one fateful day, he had fucked up. He had messed this whole thing up real bad. Gordon was sitting in the middle of a supposedly abandoned road with no other human in sight. He hadn't a clue on how he got there and he wasn't going to get an that answer any time soon. Gordon rested his head in his hands and tried his best to recall the events that lead him here... 

After the big boss fight, he was sitting in Chuck e cheese for his friend Tommy's birthday. That's when he blacked out, he was faced with a game over screen. That couldn't be right. He was struck suddenly with a feeling of disappointment and emptiness at the revelation that everything he had just experienced and everyone he met was in fact fake. That feeling quickly faded as Gordon was faced with the choice to play again or exit the game, his hand hovering over the exit button. He didn't want to choose, the idea of returning back to black mesa was nothing short of terrifying. However, Gordon would miss the science team. Over the course of time he had with them he considered them his friends. 

"C'mon man, There's gotta be a third option here." He said, voice shaky. As a test, he pressed his hand into the black void in between the two buttons. He felt something, it had a velvet texture. Gordon raised an eyebrow. Cautiously, he grabbed a handful of the velvety black, he then started pulling his hand away and back towards himself. The black curtain had been physically pulled back from him and an eye bleeding green was revealed, code written all over it. Gordon squinted his eyes, too bright, such overkill. He dropped the curtain and it pooled at his feet. Gordon slowly reached forward and without thinking planted his hand on the wall of code. 

Then there was an explosion, white noise filling his ears. He was pushed back to the wall behind him (apparently only one wall of the void was a curtain) and slumped down. The power of the explosion had drained him of any energy and Gordon instinctively closed his eyes and blacked out. 

And now he was sitting in the middle of a road. 

He rubbed his eyes and stretched his aching limbs, slowly getting up onto his feet. His first course of action was to call out for absolutely anyone, he wanted to know if he was actually alone or not because right now he seemed to be completely alone. Apparently he was the only human, no, only living thing around. Despite his whole body protesting out of pain Gordon started to walk. He passed empty stores and cars. That's when he stared down at his body and saw his right arm right as it was meant to be, waves of feeling washed over him as he remembered G-man returning his arm to him, how strange.  
"Hello? Someone?" What had he done to make this happen? Maybe this was another game, maybe it was all a bad dream. That was all wishful thinking, no game nor dream could simulate the pain he was in. 

Gordon straightened when he heard the sound of what he guessed was a car being bashed in. Gordon was thankful for the first signs of other people no matter how violent this other must be. He was already desperate. Gordon ran, following the noise. The sound of metal being crushed got louder until he saw a figure standing over a car with a hammer in hand. 

"Hey, you!" Gordon called out, apprehensive given the fact the other had a weapon and clearly wasn't hesitant in using it. The other person clearly wasn't as pleased to see someone else because they immediately dropped the hammer, jumped off the car and bolted into the closest building, not before reaching their arm into the shattered window of the car and pulling a bag of sweets out. As they ran litter flew out the bag, leaving a trail behind them. Gordon wasn't sure whether to abandon the other or follow them. Given that this was the first living being he had seen so far he had to follow them. 

The building was a tall hotel, 7 stories. Gordon pushed the door open and ran inside. He saw the trail of wrappers leading up the stairs. Gordon couldn't run up the stairs because of the pain he was already in. He pulled himself up the stairs with the railing. Every time he got a glimpse of the other they darted away quicker. Gordon breathlessly wondered how someone could have that amount of stamina. 

6 stories later and Gordon was nothing short of out of breath. He was climbing up the stairs only held up by the railing. He was sweating and the trail of wrappers was only getting longer. Soon though, his efforts payed off as he saw the door leading to the roof swung wide open with sweets leading through it. Gordon bent down with his arms on his legs and caught his breath. He had made it, would this be worth it? He had no idea. As he felt himself regain his breath and energy he walked out onto the roof. He saw the figure sitting and leaning on the roof railing. They had the sweet packet in hand and was shoving the candy in their mouth and tossing the wrappers out, litter bug. 

As Gordon approached the other he felt his blood run cold when he saw their face. He recognized the other immediately.   
"Benrey?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please go easy on me if youre gonna comment /g if you be mean i'll literally cry /hj
> 
> also this shit (in total not just this chapter) took me 7 weeks to write oh my goddd
> 
> the way that im so scared 2 be posting this because im so sensitive to other peoples opinions uaauahah *cries*


	2. ssecond chapter i cant think of names gimme a sec

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uuuaaahhh i wasnt at all expecting people 2 actually read this but TY 2 everyone who left a nice comment i rlly appreciate it :) /g
> 
> ggrrrr anxiety got so bad over posting i got a stress headache and it kind of sucked a lot but rn im running off 4 hours of sleep so im too tired 2 care
> 
> TW 4 SUICIDE ATTEMPT AND HARMFUL STIMMING/SELF HARM MENTION /srs  
> in all caps so you dont miss it  
> alright gamers lets goo B)))

Benrey peered back into the bag, upon seeing it was empty he tossed it behind him and other the side of the roof. He turned to the other standing on the roof with him. He was impressed, really, he was. He had not expected to see Gordon follow him up here. He was red in the face and breathing heavily, out of breath but still standing. Benrey slowly pushed himself onto his feet. 

  
"Yo." He said simply.   
Gordon did a double take at the short response.   
"Is that all you can say?" Gordon spat out, sounding too out of breath and too confused to say anymore.   
"Um, long time no see I guess."   
"Because you're supposed to be dead!?"   
"Oops was I?" Benrey giggled "Kidding, you know I'm not human right? I can't die sorry."   
"So, do you have any idea what happened here?"   
"Why you asking me?" Benrey asked "I'm dead remember."   
"You're the first other living thing I've seen since I ended up here."   
"Is that why you chased me?"   
"What do you think genius?"   
  
Benrey sat down again, but this time he sat on top of the railing.   
"Hey Gordon, random question time, a little survey, have you ever felt really uhh what's the word? overwhelmed?"   
"Of course..." Gordon trailed off, not sure what else to say.   
"Sometimes when that happens to me like, I feel really uhh angry? aggressive? Just a lot of build up kind of, and I gotta like take it out. Normally I just hit my helmet, now its a bit broken haha." Benrey placed his hand on the shattered area of his guard helmet, running his fingers over the cracks, "But, I have a better idea now." 

Gordon slowly stepped forward, something wasn't right here.   
"I have a way that would totally *remove* all of that feeling, it's gonna be great Gordon I'll show you." Benrey stood up on the railing.   
"What are you going to do?" Gordon took another step forward.   
"By the way Gordon," Benrey continued, ignoring the question entirely "There's an elevator up here behind you that will take you to the ground floor, it's a one way elevator which is strange and inconvenient, bye now." 

It all happened way too fast. Benrey reached his arms out and turned to steal one last glance at Gordon before swaying and falling straight off the railing. Gordon froze, heart pounding loudly, before running forward as fast as he could. But just as he had reached the other side of the roof to the railing Benrey was gone, Gordon had fruitlessly reached out to grab him but to absolutely no luck. 

Gordon was in shock. He had barely registered that Benrey was still alive before he went and jumped off a building. His hands were shaking. He didn't know where he was, where anyone else was, and he just saw someone probably commit in front of him. He was only brought out of his thoughts when he heard a distant smash from below and he finally realised he should take the elevator down. 

Gordon stood in the slowly descending elevator wringing his hands, he only now realised his lack of a HEV suit. He was back in his Physicist uniform, just a normal scientist uniform like the others had, but now it was torn and shredded, especially on the sleeve of the hand he touched the curtain and green wall with. These clothes were too destroyed to continue wearing, next time he found a clothing store he would loot it. It's not like anyone's around to stop him. Gordon reached the ground floor with a ding and bolted out of it. He shoved the hotel's doors open to investigate the damage outside... 

Lying on the concrete floor in a pool of his own crimson blood was Benrey. His helmet had a massive hole where it hit the ground and the cracks on the side burst open making it borderline unwearable and dangerous to even touch. His clothes were all torn up, looking similarly ripped to Gordons. It seemed that Benrey has discarded his security vest beforehand, probably to worsen the impact. The only clothes still relatively in tact were his boots and the pants he was wearing but only by a bit. His head was bleeding from impact as well as other various wounds. 

For a moment Gordon believed Benrey to be permanently dead, as surprising as that concept was given the recent encounter. He nudged Benrey's unmoving head with his shoe and there was no reaction, he simply slumped over limply. That was a really big fall and no one, not even a powerful alien god, could survive that much blood loss in that short of amount of time. Gordon hesitated before doing so, but he slowly began stepping away. He was hesitant to leave someone to die no matter who it was but he believed there was no way of living after that. 

To lessen the guilt, Gordon turned his head around as he slowly took steps away. Then Gordon screamed out in surprise when he felt something grab his leg. He whipped around to see Benrey's arm had latched onto his leg. A third smaller eye had grown underneath his main two. 

"heyyy where ya goin...." Benrey mumbled hazily. He may not of been dead but he seemed very close to it. Gordon tried to shake Benrey off but he only held on tighter "Don't leave me bro.. That's mean.." He continued, words slurring together. Gordon bowed his head and sighed. There truly _was_ no way of Benrey dying.   
"Fine." Gordon sighed.   
"yaaaaaaaay." Benrey managed out. 

Gordon leaned down and picked Benrey up, there was no way he would be able to walk after falling off a 7 story building. Gordon winced at the feeling of blood dripping on to his hands but he still held the other. He looked around, there must be a chemist or hospital somewhere around here. Benrey had fallen asleep, maybe died. Nah, dying was out of the question at this point. 

As Gordon walked he noted the clothing store and decided he would raid it after. Then he found a chemist, close enough. Gordon shifted Benrey to reach out a hand to push the door open and get them inside. It was abandoned, obviously. He was beginning to get used to not seeing anyone but only a little, not like he saw many people while in Black Mesa. He placed Benrey down against the wall to keep him out of the way and to free up his hands. Gordon raided the shop for bandages, gauze, and water to disinfect the wounds. He grabbed a bottle of water, the only water he could find, with the bandages under his arm. He approached Benrey who was definitely sleeping, he could see the slight rise and fall of his chest indicating he was breathing and not dead. He was a really heavy sleeper given there was no reaction when Gordon pulled up his sleeves to get to the cuts and bruises on this arms. 

When Gordon was done Benrey had bandages all over his body. His largest wound was on the back of his head, that was probably the body part that hit the ground first. Gordon had placed a gauze pad over the still slightly bleeding head wound and then wrapped the gauze tape around his head 3 times. Benrey's thick black hair had gotten in the way and made the process slightly more difficult but it was manageable. This was the first time actually seeing his hair because his helmet normally covered all of it. Despite everything Gordon had just applied to him Benrey was still fast asleep, who wouldn't be exhausted after something like that to be honest. Gordon was grateful he was because lord knows how pissy he would've gotten if he awake during it. 

He sat down next to Benrey's slumped over body and decided to take a breather. When Benrey awoke he would let him go off and do whatever while he raided the clothing store. He closed his eyes hesitantly, sleep just raring to take over him entirely. He was so tired and so stressed already and it hadn't yet been a day. Benrey's head started falling to the right and landed on Gordon's shoulder. Gordon stiffened at the sudden touch but relaxed, he didn't have the energy to care about it. Gordon rested his head against the wall and slept. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friend found the playlist i made for this fanfic and was like elliot why do you have an angst playlist and i was like its not bro- its for my fanfic but that just proved their point huh
> 
> ok bye i hate this


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the plot is slowly unravelling... its gonna fucking vague as hell because i say so. stuff will be revealed all in good time mwheeheheh
> 
> and once again I appreciate all the kudos and comments <33 really didnt think any1 would actually read this ngl 
> 
> TW: kind of panic attack you know how it be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sdfhdushajsdfds my eyes are watering so bad   
> i also just realised chapter titles r optional this is life changing

Waking up to spikes of pain all over your body wasn't pleasant but it sure was an effective method. Gordon slowly opened his eyes to see Benrey standing over him and poking his face, whispering words that all melded together in his tired state. Gordon fully awoke once Benrey punched him in the shoulder.   
"OW!" He yelled out, snapping out of his sleepiness instantly.   
"You're awake!" Benrey grinned.   
"Dude you *hit* me! I save your life and you do that, ungrateful bastard!"   
"Never said I was ungrateful Gordon, don't put words in my mouth, I was just waking you up. You are very bad at waking up and I am very good at waking people." Benrey sounded proud of his effort.   
"Fine. Just next time, if there is one that is, wake me up without punching me."   
"I mean... I'll try." 

Gordon pushed Benrey away, he tried to do so as gently as possible without hurting him. He stood up and stretched. Benrey simply sat there pulling at his bandages.   
"Don't do that man you'll break them."   
"Oops, I didn't realize I was doing that." Benrey admitted, putting his hands to his sides. Although that was short lived and Benrey started to touch the gauze pad on his head.   
"Don't touch that either, are you trying to open your wounds?" Gordon sighed.   
"You're so mean." Benrey said, his expression unreadable.   
"I'm just under a lot of stress and I don't want to fix your bandages again."   
"Why are you stressed?" Benrey asked like he had no clue how this happened either.   
"Dude I just... Come with me..." Gordon remembered his plan to raid a clothing store and he was going to stick to it. He motioned for Benrey to follow him and the two exited the chemist together. 

Gordon stood outside the clothes store.   
"I'm gonna try and find new clothes because these one's are unwearable, do you want to come with me or are you good?"   
Benrey stared at the store, he fidgeted with his shredded sleeves.   
"Can I stay out here." He said quietly. Gordon paused to think.   
"I guess so, man I'll try to find you something. You're only like an inch or two off me can't be too hard to do."   
"Uh helmet too, please and thank you."   
"I… I don't think they'll have that."   
Benrey stared off.   
"Why not."   
"I'll find something close to that." Gordon walked to the door and grabbed the door knob before sharply turning to Benrey, "Stay. Here. Do not move."   
The other nodded, still staring off at nothing. Gordon sighed and walked inside. 

Benrey stood outside, standing still as he could possibly be for a good minute before being broke from his trance by the passing wind. Benrey shivered and shook his head, his head was cold without his helmet and the static feeling he got from it's absence was starting to tick him off. It must be somewhere around here, right? Benrey started back tracking to the hotel, he knew where it was.

He recognized the pool of still fresh blood on the ground before he even processed the 7 story hotel. The alien stared at the blood, he had aches, cuts, and bruises all over his body from the impact, the worse pain would be from his head which was accompanied by a raging and persistent headache. He distinctively remembered that hitting the concrete first, he heard the crunch of helmet and skull as it hit as hard as possible before periodically blacking out. 

And there at his feet was his helmet, the back had shattered on impact. Even touching it looked like it would be enough to slice your hands off. Still, Benrey grabbed the helmet and placed it on his head. It was a familiar feeling, the best kind. Benrey remembered that Gordon said to stay put, at least he thought that was it. Whatever, Gordon would probably be there for a while he would be none the wiser if Benrey retrieved snacks. Snacks were good. 

The baseball bat had just been leaning against the wall when Benrey found it, it was like the sword in the stone, except if Excalibur was a baseball bat right next to a cop car. Benrey grinned menacingly as he gripped the bat and immediately started to bash the windows in. The glass shattered and flew everywhere, one piece scraped Benrey's face as it flew off, the scratch started to bleed out and Benrey wiped it off with the back of his hand. That was manageable, Gordon would barely notice it. 

Benrey reached a hand inside the vehicle and found a bag full of food inside, score! Benrey pulled it out and immediately started checking his loot, 3 bread rolls, a carton milk that had exploded, and a bag of marshmallows. Benrey suddenly felt his stomach lurch in hunger at the sight of food. He had basically been living off sweets he found on the ground and in cars for maybe 5 days. Gordon wouldn't know if he ate one of the bread rolls whole, Gordon wasn't fucking even here. 

Why did Benrey even care about Gordon, Benrey told himself that it was because he was the protagonist. He had to trust the hero, but that was a lie he was telling himself. There was another reason Benrey was so desperate to stay by his side. Speaking of being by his side, the alien swung his bat over his shoulder with the bag of food in his other hand and started walking back to the store. Benrey would have ran if he had the strength to. God, this sucked.

Gordon was standing in the shop searching through clothes, some were charred and ripped by a fire, maybe an explosion? Something had happened here, here in whatever strange world he was stuck in. Could it be because of him? Gordon specifically remembered an explosion happening before he blacked out and ended up in the road. He decided not to think about it. He had grabbed a white t-shirt and orange hoodie for himself. He also looted black gloves, anything for the familiarity of the HEV suit, made him feel safer to imagine he was still in it. Knowing no one was there Gordon ripped the tags off and changed, his pants weren't extremely damaged so there was no need to change them. He slipped his gloves on before remembering he promised to find something for Benrey too. 

Teaming up with Benrey wasn't exactly on his to-do list after the... events... of the game but unfortunately it seems there was no other choice. His morals also didn't exactly want to _abandon_ him after the hotel incident, there _had_ to be limits to his immortality. He could feel it. Gordon searched the store and couldn't find any helmets as he had expected. The best he could do was the blue beanie he found discarded on the ground, there were ash stains on it. The beanie had probably been blown off from the explosion. Looking around he figured that the familiarity would do both of them good, he found a black shirt and blue jacket in somewhat his size. Putting the clothes under his arm he started towards the door, hoping and *praying* Benrey would still be there. 

When Gordon opened the door he saw Benrey sitting on the road with his smashed up helmet, a plastic bag, and baseball bat in hand, he had a scratch on his cheek that wasn't there previously. Gordon sighed for maybe the millionth time.   
"Benrey, you left didn't you?" Gordon asked as he approached the other.   
"No."   
"How did you get your helmet back, the bag, the _weapon_?" Gordon pressed. Benrey didn't reply, instead reaching inside the bag and pulling out a bread roll.   
"Want one?"   
"...Yeah." Gordon didn't know why he expected _Benrey_ of all people to stay in one place, he might have to keep an eye on him. Gordon devoured the bread roll, not realizing how starving he was until he had eaten.   
"I've only been here for what, a day? And I'm starving, so weird."   
"A day? I've been here a week at least." Benrey deadpanned.  
  
Gordon choked on his food.   
"A week- but I..."   
"I've been here for ages, you probably fell asleep, lil sleepy boy."   
"What... What do you mean?" Gordon could tell Benrey knew something he didn't by the way his eyes shifted back and forth erratically.   
"Yeah I was kinda just like chilling when there was this big explosion and I was in this different world just tried to take advantage of it."   
"By running away the second you saw me?"   
"...Thought you were someone else."   
"Who did you think I was?"   
"Someone I wasn't prepared to see yet I guess, I was gonna do that thing if it was you or the other guy anyway it was just lucky for me you were there to help me." The corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile then dropped. 

Judging by the way Benrey's eyes seemed to unfocus Gordon figured that was as much as he was going to get out him. 

"Hey, hey Benrey." Gordon snapped his fingers to get his attention back, Benrey looked up hesitantly. Gordon motioned to the clothes he had under his arm.   
"So I tried finding you something since what you're wearing got pretty much shredded, and I got this hat to make up for your helmet because you... You can't keep on wearing that."   
"Why not?"   
"It's a hazard, and it's broken." Gordon tried to explain, he threw the clothes at Benrey, "Try those on if you want to, I'm gonna go see if I can find any other living person." 

Gordon walked off leaving them alone. Benrey held the clothes he had been gifted and hesitantly removed his shattered helmet. He dug in the pile for the replacement hat and grabbed a fabric he assumed must be it. He pulled it out and examined it closely. The fabric was soft, not hard like his helmet. After toying with it for a minute or so he cautiously put it on. His immediate reaction wasn't horrible so he sat there for a minute waiting to adjust to the feeling. 

He wished he had taken his helmet off before hand as he had done with this security vest, but it was too late now. The hat didn't make him completely lose it so it would do, he missed the pressure of headwear and this would have to do. Benrey looked through the two other articles of clothing he was thrown, they were rather reminiscent of his guard uniform, Gordon's hoodie was a similar orange to his now missing HEV suit. Odd. 

Since no one was around to see him Benrey simply changed in the street. The clothes were soft, Benrey breathed out a sigh in relief that the texture of them didn't make him feel like actual shit, the only thing was the jacket was slightly too big and the sleeves pooled around his elbows. He wasn't sure what to do now. He decided to try and find Gordon, he stood up and started to trail after the general direction he saw the other walk in. 

He had been walking for around 5 minutes with no luck. With a sinking feeling Benrey suspected that Gordon had used the excuse of finding others as a ploy to abandon him. The alien felt a rise of panic that he suppressed. Anxiety creeping at the thought of being alone again, he started walking faster. Benrey would call out for Gordon if it didn't feel like his voice would fail if he tried, not only that but he had a massive headache making even *thinking* hard to do. 

Stress was starting to get to him, Benrey started pulling at their bandages and shaking their hands to keep themself busy. They also started stumbling over small rocks on the road or over his own feet. He kept walking, trying his best to look out for the other. 

Then he felt his chest tighten and his breathing become labored. He knew what it meant, didn't want to admit it. He was alone. He started dragging his feet in an effort to get away, he felt his legs and arms growing heavy. Soon they would be too heavy to move. They leaned against the wall and used his arm to drag himself along, sweat pouring down his face and hands. Fuck, he felt so... pathetic. This wasn't supposed to happen.

And speak of the devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaaa noo gordon stop walking off yr too sexy aha ;(
> 
> wanna see how hard i can project- hHDGYDSHUIASJDFHUG (sound of me projecting cutely)


	4. kjfdghjgf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (reupload bcuz ao3 was being weird or something thas my bad)
> 
> back @ it again lets go gamers
> 
> I dont think this one needs a tw... i read over it once and im prettyyyy sure it doesnt?? Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was doing a maths task while uploading this and it asked us to sketch something so i sketched benrey and pressed the next button AND IT STARETD SPIINING HIM LIKE HE WAS IN A FUCKGIJN WASHING MACHINE IM SO UPSET RIGHT NIW LET HIM GO :"(
> 
> let benrey OUT of the maths washing machine 2020

Gordon only grew conscious of the time when he realised how far he had walked. He remembered that Benrey was still waiting for him and he had probably wandered off by now, unsupervised. Christ was that an alarming thought. He turned on his heel and started walking back, Gordon didn't think that anything that bad could of happened to the other in that short amount of time with supposedly no one else around so he walked with little urgency. That was until a few minutes later he spotted the silhouette of Benrey slumped against the wall and walking slowly with the bandages on his arm unraveled. Gordon picked up the pace and ran over to him. Well, ran as best he could, his legs were still weak. 

Benrey closed his eyes and leaned all his weight against the wall, completely drained of energy. He barely processed Gordon approaching him until he put a hand on their shoulder.   
"Benrey, you good?" He flinched back, not expecting the touch.  
"Uhhhh I.. Ffuck." Benrey had to close his eyes out of the lack of energy in him and grew and opened a third eye to examine his surroundings.   
"Are you good? you look really tired."   
"I.. I think.. I think we should just leave. Vibes here so off right now." 

Gordon took a moment to think before putting an arm over the others shoulder and helping them walk away. They took a sharp left down an alley wall the second Benrey started regaining energy and opening up his eyes. 

He still felt sweat pouring down but he barely cared and merely wiped it off with that back of his hand, his heart was slowly calming down from racing. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was so terrified of being alone here, especially with the looming threat of... Them. The others here, wherever they were. When he was ready he would explain everything but right now they simply couldn't find the words to say. Anyway, he still needed time to prepare for them. But for now Benrey was pretty sure they weren't anywhere close. For now at least. 

Benrey sat against the dark wall of the alleyway and pulled their legs up to their chest. He sat there for a moment catching his breath and calming from his panicked state. Gordon looked worried, it didn't matter. Gordon decided not to press the subject which Benrey was thankful for, instead he shifted to sit next to him to tighten the unraveled bandages on his right arm. Despite bandages covering his wounds he still had bruises all over his body, they had a particularly bad one on his face and shoulder. There wasn't much he could do about them, just wait for them to fade. 

"Thanks." Benrey mumbled out, retreating his arm back once Gordon was done. Gordon also pulled back, holding himself similarly to Benrey.   
"Are you gonna talk about it?" Gordon asked after a while of silence.   
"About what?" Benrey shifted his gaze away from the other.   
"Y'know, like 5 minutes ago when you could barely move or anything?"   
"Oh yeah, I couldn't find you so I went looking for you and boom I did it."   
"That's not what I was asking."   
"What." Benrey stared off blankly, Gordon wasn't sure if he was playing dumb or sincerely didn't remember the last few minutes. 

Gordon decided not to focus on that, whatever it was would be explained when Benrey wanted to. For now he was thinking about how Benrey landed head first onto concrete from approximately 28 meters, now Gordon was no expert but especially since his protective helmet had shattered upon impact that must of causes some sort of brain damage or concussion. He didn't remember the symptoms off by heart but he did remember some from his early danger training, losing consciousness for minutes to hours, persistent or growing headache, vomiting, and memory or concentration problems. Most of them seemed to be present, he decided to press him on it. 

"Benrey, about the hotel thing."   
"Huh."   
"I'm starting to think you might have like, brain damage or something."   
"Don't be mean."   
"I'm not I'm just.. Look. Your fall was pretty fucking bad, ok? I'm just worried."   
"The fall..." Benrey stared forward, lost in thought. He didn't like the reminder.   
"...Shouldn't of brought it up so soon, my bad. My bad. Fuck let's change subject." Gordon tapped his finger against his leg as he thought, "You were awake before I was, what were you even doing?" Stellar subject change Gordon you've done it again

"Fuck uh... It's kind of... Kind of fuzzy memories now. Like, just vague images. Don't actually remember much." Why was this so fucking hard oh my god, just think idiot... Nope, just slight images of wherever they were. At least he tried.  
"Yeah I think you have brain damage for real. I remember you being out for a while, memory problems, and what about like headaches or vomiting anything else to check off?" Gordon continued, coming to his conclusion. Benrey placed a hand on his forehead.   
"Yeah I uh have this headache I think." 

"Ok so here's the plan. Once we get out of here I'll take you to a doctor. For now I think you'll be relatively ok. You're not human and you are pretty resilient."   
"Thank you." Benrey smiled slightly "I have always prided myself on being built different." 

So now that was out of the way, Gordon suddenly realised how hungry he had become. It seemed Benrey had just abandoned the bag of food they had been carrying before so they would have to look for more. Unfortunately they were both extremely out of it, they would benefit more to just relax for a moment. 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence Gordon got to his feet, Benrey quickly followed him.   
"Let's got try to find something to eat or else we're gonna starve to death out here." Gordon started walking out of the alleyway and back onto the street and Benrey trailed behind him.   
"Where we goin?" Benrey asked, lifting a hand to grab his beanie as the wind began to pick up. It seemed to be getting stronger every second, not good.

"To hopefully find a grocery store that isn't all out of date I guess." Gordon replied, putting his hands in his hoodie pocket. With his free hand Benrey reached out and linked arms with Gordon, pulling them close together.   
"Wh- Fine you do that." Gordon jumped in surprise but he wasn't exactly objected to it. He didn't have the energy to reprimand them.

The wind continued to grow stronger, Benrey held on stronger to his beanie when his jacket started to slip off his shoulders. He took a risk by letting go briefly to readjust it, which backfired immediately. Their beanie flew straight off and got tangled up in the branches of the tree behind them. Benrey stared back at it for a few seconds, Gordon paused and looked as well. Despite the ravenous winds Benrey zipped his jacket up and started walking to the tree.  
  
"Benrey, just leave it. It's not worth it"   
"No way man." Benrey already had his hands clutching the highest branch he could manage and began to pull himself up. The weird lack of pressure from not having his helmet was bad enough he needed anything he could get.

Gordon had a bad feeling about this but he stood by the trunk of the tree and watched Benrey make his way up. The hat was pretty stuck up there, they persisted. They slowly climbed up the thin and thick branches. Gordon cleared his throat.   
"Benrey I've been thinking."   
"Oh that's new."   
"Fuck off, anyway since somehow you ended up here wouldn't that mean the science team is as well?"   
Benrey paused, he took a breath before continuing to climb.   
"I guess so." He said.   
"Maybe when we're done finding food we could go looking for them-" Gordon barely finished his sentence when 

SNAP 

Benrey placed his foot wrong and the branch shattered under his weight. He fell through the branches straight to the ground, Gordon panicked and opened up his arms. By some miracle Benrey fell straight into his arms and didn't hit the ground. Benrey was dazed for a minute, eyes wide, and Gordon was as well to a degree. After a spot of silence, Benrey slowly let himself get set back on the ground.   
"That... Took me back." Their eyes looked unfocused.   
"I bet." Gordon decided not to ask about it. Definitely not the time. Instead he linked arms back with Benrey and walked him away, fuck that beanie. 

After a minute Benrey started to speak again, just random nonsense at a pace too fast for Gordon to comprehend. But it was something. Soon his possibly panicked and fast tone slowed to a reasonable ramble.  
"Don't like that feeling. Falling. Ughhgh." Was the first thing he said that was comprehensible.  
"I get it, I always feel on edge when I walk into a dark room." 

There was silence.   
"...Sorry." Benrey mumbled out, hugging himself and avoiding eye contact as perusal.   
"Yeah that was kind of fucked up of you and Bubby to do that."   
"Didn't know they would do that. They never mentioned... That... Part"   
"What were you expecting they would do, honest question?"   
"I just... I just thought that they would take you away, or something. But then they attacked or something. They said that wouldn't happen they promised. I... don't remember it that good."   
"Yeah y'know what I don't expect you to remember, but... I don't think i'll ever forget it." Gordon shivered at the memory.

"...I'm sorry. For real." Benrey was chewing on the sleeve of his jacket nervously.   
"I'll half accept your apology for now," Gordon shrugged, he might as well if he was stuck with them "But most people prefer if people apologise with their actions, an apology without change is just useless." He rambled. Benrey looked deep in thought, he made a noise of acknowledgment but said nothing else.

More silence, it was so tense you could physically feel it weighing you down. Benrey was just eating away at the sleeve of his jacket and his other hand was twitching. Now that conversation was out of the way they had to focus on working together and their priority of finding a source of food.   
  
With the air becoming less tense the two stumbled upon the parking lot of a large convenience store.   
"We did it! A convenience store." Gordon felt a tad more upbeat then before.  
"Yaay food store." Benrey trailed behind, he seemed nervous until he spotted the rows of trolleys lined up by the abandoned cars. He pushed past Gordon to them and jumped onto the front. 

"Yooo these cars are sick."   
"Those are trolleys, but close enough I guess." Gordon reached over and pulled the trolley Benrey was standing on out from the rest. He pondered for a moment, then decided.   
"Hey Benrey, if you sat in the trolley I could push you around the store if you want,"   
"Oh my god. Really!?" Benrey wasted no time lifting his leg over the front of the trolley and jumping in it.  
  
"Yeah but if you pull some shit I'm pushing you down a hill and not coming back."   
"You wouldn't."   
"Don't test me." Gordon warned "I've done it before."  
"Really?"  
"Yeah. And they didn't live to tell the story."  
"Nice. Gordon murder moments."  
"I was kidding, do not tell the cops I said that."  
"Cops aren't real idiot. And if they were I would bite them."  
"Aren't you a cop?"  
"No I'm a gamer, stupid."  
"Of course, my bad."  
They had reached the door and Gordon just pushed the trolley against it to open it. 

Inside the building it was dark and rather dingy.   
"How are we meant to find food in this light?" Gordon groaned, Benrey pointed next to them. On the wall was an emergency power switch, of course, how could he be so stupid. Gordon reached over and pulled it up and the whole building lit up at once. Hurt by the light Benrey covered his eyes with his hands, it was too much at once. Waaay too much. Gordon noticed Benrey's bad reaction to light and wandered off for a second, he returned with shades in hand.   
"Normally I'm against shades indoors... but I'll make an exception this once." Gordon handed them over. Benrey snatched them and put them on, they slowly blinked and let their eyes adjust.   
"Better." They mumbled out gratefully. 

Gordon grabbed the trolley and starting pushing it through the shop, there was thankfully more then food. He was able to retrieve more medical supplies because god knows they needed it, along with bottles of water because dehydration was just as bad as starvation. Gordon wandered the food aisles and Benrey just reached out of the trolley and snatched up anything that looked interesting, Gordon didn't care because he wasn't paying but he made sure to grab healthy food as well to balance it out. When the trolley was pretty much full of stuff Gordon just started mindlessly pushing through the isles not really paying that much attention until Benrey yelled at him to stop.

To his surprise there was a row of what looked like fake military gear, including helmets. There was a single blue helmet and Benrey grabbed it right up. It was almost as sturdy and comfortable as his old one. It fit on their head perfectly. Fucking sick as.

"Wow, they have almost everything here." Gordon said slightly taken aback, "That's convenient."   
"Yeah because it's a convenience store are you fucking stupid."   
"Shut up." Gordon rolled his eyes and continued pushing the trolley, they had pretty much everything they needed but where would they go after this?  
"We could stay inside here just for tonight, it's safe in here." Gordon suggested.  
"Sounds good." Benrey said, throwing the sunglasses away now that he had his helmet to provide shade over his eyes.   
"Dude don't throw things."   
"Bleh, it doesn't matter. No one else is here."   
"Still? You're such a litter bug, man." 

The two stopped the trolley by the checkout, they rested against the wall and started grabbing at food to eat. While they were doing that Gordon took notice in Benrey's wounds, more specifically the bandages covering them. There were red and brown patches of dry blood covering them and some were falling off and unraveled thanks to Benrey's meddling and branches from the tree snagging on them. He had stocked up on more supplies to help with this but he would rather wait for Benrey to be asleep before he did anything lest he complain the entire time. For now, Gordon decided to try and make conversation. 

"Do you still have your weird alien powers or was that black mesa exclusive shit?"   
"Well, I uh can't die... As easily" Benrey shrugged.   
"Seen that, but what about that sweet voice thing?"   
"I think I can still do that, but I won't until you need to calm down or something haha."   
"Oh come on, I am so calm!"   
"You're welcome."   
"Whatever, anything else or just immortality and singing?" 

"Yeah well I'm actually a catboy does that count."   
"I thought cats always landed on their feet?" Gordon teased.   
"Asshole, blocked and reported." Benrey side-eyed Gordon. He only cackled in response.   
"Sorry man, can I be a, uhhhh, dogboy to fit in with you?"   
"No because you're cringe as." Benrey snapped, Gordon feigned hurt, "Whatever I got some Monster energyTM." Benrey pulled the can out of the trolley.   
"Dude no don't drink that you'll have a heart attack and die." He warned.   
"Guess I'll be seeing you on the other side then, Cringeman." Benrey said before downing the whole can.   
"I guess you've had worse on black mesa." Gordon shrugged. 

"I just realised it's probably been at least a day now and you haven't asked for my passport, high score I think." Gordon joked.   
"I actually don't have mine either, I think it's gone now cuz of the uhhh fight or something." Benrey admitted.   
"Oh no man, you're gonna die now." Gordon laughed.   
"How unfortunate. Before I do is anyone gonna admit they have a crush on me?"   
"Crush? You?" Gordon rolled his eyes while smiling.   
"Gordon, we all know you have it for me, don't play stupid."   
"I think you're the stupid one here." He scoffed.   
"Famous wedding vows." Benrey clapped "Inspirational, Gordon, really."   
"You're cringe Benrey, get good before I even think about looking at you."   
"Gordon, you are speaking to the most epic fucking gamer known to man."   
"Prove it to me." 

Benrey leaned in really close.   
"Poggers."   
Gordon shoved him away. 

An hour or two later Benrey started rummaging around the store and throwing things onto the ground, not like anyone was there to stop him from trashing the place might as well take advantage of it. The alien soon grew tired, god he was exhausted from the last few hours. He sat down next to Gordon and fell asleep. They leaned against his shoulder as they slept, as normal. Gordon slowly moved Benrey off and let him sit against the wall. 

He carefully removed his helmet and jacket, thank god for Benrey being a heavy sleeper. Gordon cautiously removed and unraveled all the bandages, most of the cuts were healing over already which was promising, despite most of his powers being nerfed at this point his regeneration and resilience was still higher then average. The wound on his head however was still bleeding. He replaced the gauze on that first, making sure not to wrap it too tight. Once he was done with that he put Benrey's helmet back, at least it would serve as protection and make sure that wound wouldn't get worse. He proceeded to unwrap the bandage tape around his legs and arms and replace it.

He then moved on to the regular Band-Aids that were slightly peeling off, removing and replacing. The only thing he couldn't help was the bruises spread liberally around his body that were still a deep purple shade. Gordon decided to drape the blue jacket over Benrey like a blanket instead of attempting to put it back on. Gordon gathered the discarded bandages and threw them into the garbage near the entrance. Once he was done he was also exhausted, he leaned up next to Benrey and drifted off to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to rewrite most of this chapter and my foot literally fell asleep because of it i hate this one grrrrrrrrrrrrrr  
> im not checking it over again im done
> 
> i straight up dont know how 2 write anyway bye


	5. oh fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C/TW: Fighting, violence, vomit mention, panic attack, and blood yknow that kind of stuff
> 
> yeah shit happens  
> totally forgot this part happened this chapter oh boy im not prepared
> 
> and i forgot 2 mention last chapter but once again the kudos and commentz r all appreciated<3
> 
> uh sorry in advance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> benrey has a gun and secrets
> 
> *puts him back into the washing machine*

When Benrey woke up it was still dark out with only hints of the sun peaking through. Gordon was asleep because he was a piss baby loser but Benrey remembered he didn't like being woken up so he might as well do his job and look around. 

He exited the building and started checking the parking lot, his thoughts wandering back to the tree. Gordon mentioned the science team and it took Benrey off guard and they misstepped severely. The feeling of plunging towards the ground and that feeling in his stomach reopened memories of the hotel in his head. He shuddered just thinking about it, the feeling of despair knowing this might of been his limit. Knowing he had no other choice in the matter. 

The science team was another issue, he still needed to... prepare. Benrey had been weakened by his fall and had no plan of action still. They still had no way of explaining the situation to Gordon, each time they tried when silence blanketed them the words had refused to come out. There was no sweet voice to portray it so he was at a loss. His memory was growing blurrier every day to add onto it. Gordon was probably right about the brain damage thing. 

Benrey stopped in his tracks when he saw a discarded gun laying on the rain soaked parking lot pavement, when had it rained? Fuck this place is weird. He reached down and picked it up with little hesitation, he twisted his hand around while shifting it into position. They pointed towards the window of a dusty old vintage car and pulled the trigger, a bullet went off and shattered the glass. Benrey grinned at that, holstering the gun into his pocket and wandering back inside. 

Inside the convenience store was still a mystery, there were various entrances to other rooms all over the place that Gordon avoided. They approached one and pushed the door open, inside was a freezer with plenty of meat inside. Nothing of interest so he left immediately. 

As he closed the door behind him, Benrey noticed Gordon had moved from where he was sleeping and began walking over. Anxiety twisted in him, he wasn't going to admit but he was so desperately afraid of being alone. Especially here, in this world. 

Luckily Gordon rounded the corner and appeared from one of the aisles, they locked eyes instantly and Gordon sighed in relief.   
"Dude, I was looking for you!" Gordon walked up to where Benrey was standing and soon they were standing a metre apart.   
"Uh I found this." Benrey said without thinking and pulled the gun out of his pocket.   
"No. Put that back." Gordon said with no hesitation. Benrey stared back, unblinking.   
"You can't tell me what to do. I am the one with the gun here." He said.   
"You're so irritating."   
"People say it's my best trait thank you."   
"Just.. Don't shoot people with it, if we even find any. Especially not me, don't even point it at me, man."   
"Fffine." Benrey put the gun back in his pocket and looked away. 

"What do we do now?" Gordon sighed, running a hand through his hair and tentatively looking around the store.   
"Um, I don't know." Benrey grabbed at his sleeves.   
"There has to be a way out of here, the science team would know how to-"   
"We don't need to find them." Benrey snapped.   
"Jesus dude, they're my friends and we don't wanna leave them in this world."   
"I... I need more time." Benrey stammered.   
"Time?" Gordon raised an eyebrow, Benrey didn't elaborate. He chose instead to pull his helmet over his head to cover his eyes and started walking away. Gordon followed suit. 

"We're going off to find them and that is final." Gordon announced while still following the other. Benrey only huffed in response, he'd have to think fast. Luckily he had the bare essentials that he slipped into his pocket while ravaging around last night. Gordon started looking around, standing outside the store.   
"Any clue on where they are or are you gonna continue on keeping me in the dark?" Gordon rolled his eyes in frustration.   
"Um." Benrey thought for a moment, "Probably somewhere science-y. It's their natural habitat they flock to it like Pokémon y'know that's the area they spawn in that's the route."   
"That makes sense." Gordon agreed "Lets look for anything science related." 

Now that the constant paranoia that a military bootlicker wasn't about to ambush him from every corner Gordon was slightly more relaxed, ergo more patient and willing to put up with Benrey, and when not in a life threatening situation he isn't _that_ bad. He always took ages to respond and spoke in the weirdest way but Gordon had more time to understand it now which was an improvement. He had to get along with them, it was the only way they would survive this. Unless Benrey turned around and betrayed him again.. Gordon tried not to think about that possibility. He would be absolutely fucked if that were to happen again.

The two walked down the empty street on the road, Benrey had his hand resting on the gun in his pocket. He never knew when they would make a guest appearance. At least Gordon wasn't getting mad at them as much, which was helpful and nice of him. Back at Black Mesa Gordon was always yelling about one thing or another and Benrey never processed a *word* of it, he was good at pretending he did though. Especially in combat, the overlapping noises muffled out all the words. But now that it was practically silent with no one but the two of them it was easier to hear. 

Gordon stopped suddenly, Benrey lagged and stumbled forward.   
"Whuh, dude why'd you stop." Benrey stepped backwards and faced Gordon.   
"Science building." Gordon pointed to a tall white building that was quite clearly used for science purposes.  
"They must be in there then." Benrey said hazily, hand on the gun. Don't let it slip. You'll pay if you do.

Gordon pushed the door open with enthusiasm. He must be so excited to find his friends. His _real_ friends, something other then Benrey. Benrey had to grab onto his bandages to remind himself that Gordon has to care about him somewhat. Anything to keep them from losing their mind before getting to the others. Benrey walked slower, he trailed behind Gordon. The main room was brightened by a dull light but Benrey was cautious of the door leading to the hallway.  
  
"Stop, stop, stop." They spat out, Benrey pushed Gordon aside and went to inspect the hallway themself. Just as he expected, dark and there was a low churn of machines whirring. That wouldn't do, Benrey remembered his other power. It took a bit out of him but it was the only reasonable option to progress. Benrey closed the door and turned to Gordon.   
"Wait bro watch this." Gordon eyed him curiously. Benrey let sweet voice bubble up in his throat before swallowing it, the sweet voice spread through his body completely lighting up. 

The sweet voice in his system made his pale blue-grey skin glow, but straining sweet voice always made him feel slightly weaker then normal.   
"Boom now I'm a flashlight." He deadpanned. Gordon's eyes widened in surprise, he tried to play off his astonishment however.   
"Is that all? Can we continue now?"   
"No one more detail," Benrey reached a glowing hand out "You have to um... Hold my hand."   
"Do I?"   
"...It would be nice if you did." 

Fine, whatever. Gordon reached his hand out and took Benrey's. They grinned at that giddily. Benrey opened the door and hesitantly let Gordon step through. It was dark and noisy, sort of like the room where... No, there was light now. Benrey's glowing let him make out most of his surroundings... Which must of been the whole reason he did it in the first place... 

Some rooms had been illuminated by melting candles, meaning someone had been in here recently. The thought of it made Benrey's stomach churn. He did his best to hide his discomfort, putting up an expressionless front. They distracted themself by looking around the dimly lit building and noticed it resembled a hospital crossed with a science lab. A prime location for the Science Team. 

As the two progressed they heard foreign noises, not the whirl of machinery but the familiar sound of a keyboard being used. There was a dull mummer of talking from inside the room at the end of the hallway. Gordon beamed.   
"That has to be them!" He looked so giddy, he could finally see his friends again! If only that was the case. 

"Wait, Gordon." His hands shook as he prepared himself, a sickly sweet taste on his tongue. Too reminiscent of the time he and Bubby betrayed Gordon... Whatever, this was for his own good. Gordon paused, saying nothing but simply staring at Benrey. Benrey needed him just a bit closer, only a bit. That's all it would take.

"Yo Gordon just," Benrey motioned Gordon to move closer, Gordon took a few hesitant steps forward before Benrey let a stream of sweet voice burst out and hit him in the face, the sweet voice draining the glow from his body. Gordon staggered before falling over, lucking Benrey caught him and sat him against the wall, he hoped Gordon was a heavy sleeper like he was. The sweet voice wasn't harmful, purely to knock him out. 

He didn't need Gordon getting caught in the upcoming crossfire. 

Benrey hesitantly pulled the gun out of his pocket. He breathed in to calm the rising panic building in him and slowly pressed a hand against the door. He tip-toed inside, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. They didn't want to do this, their body and mind screamed at them to turn back and run but they couldn't. Benrey was in too deep. 

The room was as dimly lit as the others had been, there was a massive window being the only source of light besides the half-melted candle on top of the dusty bookshelf on the left of the room. The only thing of interest however, was the three hunched over figured in the middle of the room tapping on their computers and mumbling to themselves. Benrey slowly held his gun up ready and stepped closer to the figures. 

The three seemed to pick up on the noise and ever so slowly they spun around in their chairs to face the intruder. The faces of Tommy, Coomer, and Bubby stared at him, Benrey gulped and with a shaking hand raised his gun further. Their eyes were soulless, no control over their bodies left. He knew what was happening, they were _infected._ At least he had briefly enough control to save himself, now it was their turn. 

Benrey knew it was going to be for their own good but the guilt and regret that washed over him when he fired his first warning shot was undeniable. Immediately 'Tommy' sprang out his chair and was the first to attack, he aimed at Benrey's arm but they pulled away just in time. Running on straight adrenaline Benrey fired a bullet into 'Tommy's' arm. The shot pushed 'Tommy' back to his chair. It started slipping, they were strong but not strong enough. With regret Benrey fired one more shot at 'Tommy', a yellow looking replica of Tommy slipped straight out of Tommy's body like a ghost leaving its dead mortal body. 'Bubby' and 'Coomer' had retreated to the corner of the room to plan out their attack, Benrey fired a warning shot as he dragged Tommy's limp body out of the way. 

He was bleeding out pretty bad, Benrey turned down to his own arm and started unravelling his bandages and snapped it off with his sharp teeth. As quick as he could he covered the bullet wounds on his friends arm then turned towards the two others. He would deal with 'it' when he was done. 

The next attack came from 'Bubby', who threw himself at Benrey. Benrey couldn't dodge in time and was shoved against the bookshelf, the bookshelf rattled from the force and books fell off and smashed against 'Bubby' and Benrey's head. Benrey was thankful for his new helmet that had absorbed most of the damage but dazed him regardless. 'Bubby' wasn't so lucky and the force sent him reeling. Benrey saw an opportunity and he took it, 'Bubby' staggered back against the desks were the computers were situated and Benrey grabbed 'Bubby' by the collar of his science lab uniform and bashed his head down against the desk. After pulling Bubby back a cyan clone of him was still laying against the desk, 2 down 1 to go. 

Benrey quickly pushed Bubby over to where Tommy was lying, he was bleeding out of his forehead from the books and desk. Benrey thought fast, he slipped his helmet off for a second to remove the gauze and gauze wrap on his head and wrapped it around Bubby's wound. That would have to do for now. At least he had his helmet to cover the exposed wound on his head, Bubby had nothing but what he was just gifted. 

Benrey had barely had any time to react nor put his helmet back on when a punch was landed right on the back of his neck. Benrey felt the wind get knocked out of him by 'Coomer's' attack but regained himself enough to put his helmet back and dash to the other side of the room. He cowered there for a second, feeling like he was about to vomit. How the fuck would he beat 'Coomer'. Back in Black Mesa he had been absolutely decked by Coomer twice. 'Coomer had practically no weaknesses... Except green goop.. But there was no green goop around, but 'Coomer' was quickly approaching once again, fists raised. In a spur of the moment decision Benrey spat out green sweet voice, it clearly wasn't the same and he was already straining his sweet voice and felt sick from swallowing it but it was his only solution. 

'Coomer' backed off, he held his head in his hands and was incapacitated. It was clearly a momentary stun and Benrey knew they had to think of something else quick. Another thing that's taken Coomer out was getting his leg caught in the door. But they couldn't risk catching 'Coomer' with the door to the hallway, if they found Gordon out there... Practically defenseless… Ok maybe that wasn't a good idea but he was _rushing_ this plan. This was all improvised and spur of the moment ideas that hadn't yet killed them, yet. As 'Coomer' regained his composure Benrey shot at him straight to the chest, 'Coomer' looked completely unaffected. Benrey pushed themself further against the wall and winced. Their hands were too shaky to hold the gun any longer and they dropped it at their feet. 

They dashed to the other side of the room as 'Coomer' started ascending toward them. There was a locker in here, Benrey grabbed the lock and pulled it straight off. As 'Coomer' ran at Benrey they opened the locker door in his face. Coomer smashed against it and slumped to the ground. Benrey breathed out in absolute _relief_ when he saw the green coomer clone laying next to Coomer. Benrey hooked his hands under Coomer's armpits and heaved him to the others. The only issue now was _them_. The fakes.

The solid colour clones laid unmoving on the ground, if only there was another way to rid them apart from physical violence. Benrey winced in pain, some of his wounds has reopened and he was bleeding through his bandages and onto his clothes. 

Benrey knew better then to touch the clones so he tentatively grabbed a discarded rope and used it to pile the three together. It was unlikely either the science team or the fakers would be waking up any time soon. 

Absolutely exhausted Benrey leaned against the bloodied locker and slumped to the ground, he pulled his knees up to his chest and started to rock back and forth to calm his pounding heart. Looking around the room his mind started to wander.. If Gordon walked in he wouldn't understand what just went down. He would think Benrey did it to hurt Gordon's friends and betray him. 

They didn't want to hurt anyone. They wanted everyone to be ok. They knew how this worked, they tested it on themself. Their whole body was in immense pain and they still didn't have the words to explain this world, their actions, the clones, anything! They were stuck. They looked so bad in this situation. They weren't bad, were they? Memories of having no control over their words or actions in Black Mesa hit them like a freight train. Mumblings of Gordon saying how much he hated them and how he wished they were dead. 

This was their one shot, their once chance to be good. And it seemed they blew it.   
"You should of explained earlier." Benrey continued rocking in a last ditch effort to stop themself from losing their shit "First day, even!" Things only escalated when they felt themself lose the feeling in their hands and feet leaving them with pins and needles. It was them, they were back. Benrey wasn't safe. They looked back at the sleeping pile making up their- no, Gordon's friends. They stumbled to their feet and before fleeing the scene they coated the three in a cocoon of sweet voice, its effects should last long enough for them not to be hurt too badly. 

A wave of weakness was threatening to knock Benrey over so they shuffled to the door, abandoning their weapon entirely. They slammed the door behind them and made their way up to the unharmed, alive, sleeping figure of Gordon Freeman. Benrey poked at his face relentlessly.   
"Wake up wake up." They chanted in a small voice hurriedly, they needed to get out of here. Both of them. All of them. Realising Gordon was out fucking cold, Benrey held up Gordon as best as they could with their endlessly shaking hands. They spat some strong sweet voice at Gordon and prayed it would wake him. 

The second Gordon gasped awake Benrey pulled away, Gordon looked around with a terrified gaze.   
"Wh-what happened? Where are the others?" Gordon asked hurriedly, he took one look at how disheveled Benrey looked and worry spread through him.   
"I... I don't know how to explain, look I know what's happening here and in this world but it's so hard dude it's hard..." Benrey spluttered out, reaching up to tug on his black hair. Gordon was confused.   
"What do you mean?"   
"It's hard to put words to it bro its hard for me but I don't want you to think I'm the bad guy still... again... I don't want to be, man."   
"What did you do." Gordon grabbed hold of Benrey's arm so they couldn't run off nor pull their own hair out from stress.   
"Promise you won't yell or something.. I swear I did it to be good. I tried ok.."   
"...I promise," 

Benrey was shaking too bad to stand and Gordon had to pull the both of them up. Benrey glanced to the room and Gordon knew immediately what they were implying. He pushed inside, holding Benrey up with his arm. He stared inside and his stomach dropped at the bloody display. Benrey's heart dropped too when he noticed that *they* were no longer in the room and the rope was now sitting discarded on the ground. Gordon stared down at the pile making up their friends, he noticed the,, attempt,, at patching them up using what he could only assume was Benrey's own bandages. 

"Alright man, time to explain. Try your best." Gordon's tone was dark, but calm.  
And with some reassurance, Benrey began... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uauuaahhah exposition next chapter   
> :')
> 
> yeah it only gets worse from here


	6. m m m m m mmmmmmmm m  lore time :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh wow last chapter huh  
> *canned laugh from audience*  
> well now we have the funny exposition chapter with some old friends.... f..riends..
> 
> they're not really nice friends.
> 
> TW: swearing (a lot), some panic,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got th fucking benry hoodie i am ASCENDING. the cat hair covering it from my cat sitting on me for the better of two hours only adds to the catboy aesthetic ok?  
> *puts helmet on*  
> i have become the benrey

"God fucking damn." They sat on top of the window sill and looked down at the bloody mess in the room, "When he said things were bad I didn't think he meant a complete massacre." They snorted to themself, slowly they lowered onto the ground. Immediately they approached their buddies, what losers! Tied up and knocked out, what whimps to lose to someone like _him_. One of them opened an eye, they recognised him immediately and started struggling against the rope. 

"You idiots would be dead without me." They clicked their tongue and made quick work of the rope with their sharp teeth. One of them shot up.   
"You fucking bit me!" He snarled.   
"Cope." They spat back with venom, honestly, these people would be absolutely nothing if it weren't for them. The three of them slowly got to their feet, they examined their condition closely. The tallest had bullet holes in his arm, the one he bit on accident had a head wound, and the one who woke first had a bruise on their face and was bleeding out slightly. 

"You all look pathetic, come on let's ditch this place." They approached the window and swung their legs over it and stared out before continuing. "I finished the base while you three got your asses handed to you."   
"Wh-what about them?" The tallest pointed to the bodies in the corner, he sneered.   
"We can always get them later." They said with a shrug and side eye.   
"Pussy." The cyan man sneers. They shot him a look before slipping out of the window and onto the road below, it wasn't a far jump by any margin as it was the 1st floor. The other three trickled out the window behind them. 

"So, did you guys find out what I needed to know?" They snapped at them "Before you all got beat up?"   
"Most of it, we just need a few more minutes of research and our plan will be fool-proof!" The green man exclaimed. They groaned, pinching the bridge of their nose and turning away.   
"I can't rely on you fuckers for anything."   
"Maybe if you were _nicer_ -"   
"Oh shut the fuck up VB." They growled, teeth barred at the tall cyan man. VB said nothing but crossed his arms and snarled. 

The tall yellow man looked between the two.   
"Come on now,, be nice,," He said wistfully, a sad tinge ever present in his voice.   
"Not to _them_!" VB grumbled, rubbing the wound on his head.   
"Just because we're working together and I have to tolerate your presence doesn't mean I have to like any of you." They said matter-of-factly. 

The four walked off towards base, the three identical clones of the science team trailing behind their self-proclaimed leader. Except they didn't quite resemble their counterparts, they were a solid colour, for some of them the outlines of their bodies had become blurred. Their eyes were blank and soulless and they had disconnected their names from the others. 

The tall yellow man, VT, always acted so above violence when he was always the first to jump into action, however the short green man, VC, was the most brutal. He could throw a mean punch. VB was sick of all of this, their leader was the first to be separated from their actual stable bodies and controlled the others with an iron grip, not to mention that they were insufferable on purpose. 

The way they strode ahead of the rest with a resting smug face, knowing that no one could defeat them. Despite their upperhand they never put themself in any immediate danger and made VB, VC, and VT do the dirty work for them. Some leader they are. 

Their leader didn't have an abbreviated name like they dubbed the others, they're above that. They simply went by Virus. They had to stand out from the others, they are the leader and those 3 were merely their lackeys, why bother in naming them other then their slightly differing abbreviations? 

Virus made their way to the black building, they pushed the doors open and showed the three others the inside.   
"Looks really fucking bad." VB commented.   
"Yeah I designed after your disgusting face." Virus smirked.   
"I'll paint these walls red with your blood." VB threatened.   
"Nah, red would clash with the aesthetic, you're really bad at colour theory VB."   
VB was so close to lashing out and going fucking insane until VC put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.   
"Don't feed into it, they're fucking with you." VC whispered.   
"I know... It's just so tempting to wipe that grin off their face sometimes." VB huffed. 

Touch was a very tricky thing when it came to them. Their bodies were anything but stable forms. If they desired they could melt into a puddle and slip through any crack or let any solid object pass right through them. However, it did take a lot of them to basically destroy their barely stable body by bending it's limits even further so it wasn't often they did so. However, letting another being touch you was something else entirely, they could easily melt the touched area making their hand or surface melt through with no issue. Being able to touch each other was a luxury and a rare occasion. VB and VC were close, that's why it was most common to happen to them. 

The closest one to Virus would be VT, he was a fucking suck up and good liar. VT wanted to be in charge so bad, he played dumb and innocent but would not hesitate to break bones the second he had the opportunity. There had been only one closer to Virus but,, it was practically forbidden to speak of them. It was an unspoken rule, best not get on Virus's bad side. 

Virus huffed at the display of affection and motioned for the three to get back to work. They scampered off leaving them alone. For a moment Virus examined their blue body that was completely unstable in the mirror hanging lop-sided on the wall and was lost in thought for a moment. Then they turned their thoughts back to the pressing matter at hand, their target. He were there at the scene of the crime. 

They were able to do a quick scan and picked up on everything about him, including his location at *all times*. This would be fun... 

* * *

"Th-there were others here,," Benrey stared at the discarded rope with worry.   
"Please just explain why our friends are passed out on the floor right now and bleeding." Gordon sighed.   
"Ok, ok. Um I can't tell you that much because uhh I don't remember too good. This would of gone better if you let me have my extra time to sort out my plan." Benrey huffed and closed his eyes to think hard about what to say next.   
"Ok let me give you somewhere to build off," Gordon placed steady hands on the other's shoulders "Where the ever-loving fuck are we, just in general. I know you know where this world or abandoned area is so spit it, man." 

Benrey shrunk back, he would of loved being touched but right now he was about to spiral into panic and it only furthered the labor in his breathing. Ok, ok. Come on Benrey just explain where this is. You can do it bro. Stop being stupid this is kind of embarrassing for you.  
"Ok, um. So you know how Black mesa was just a game r-right?" Benrey began, trying to hide the fact he was flapping his hands to stay calm.   
"Y-yeah, I saw the game over screen and I pulled away the curtain and came across code.. I touched it and now I'm here, what's your point?" Gordon flexed the muscles in his right arm. Still there. *Just a game Gordon don't freak out*. 

"W-well that stunt you pulled fucked with realities, the choice was to stay in the game or leave the game and now we're in this um mix of the two-" Benrey spluttered out "A sort of transition between game to reality or vice-versa you probably wasn't supposed to unlock."   
"Is that why there isn't anyone around?" Gordon flicked his gaze behind them to the pile of bodies. "How does it pick and choose who goes to this middle ground or not." 

"Y-ya see all NPC's in the game have like a regular code in them that gives them looping actions and no free will but me and u-uh the science team our code had a mind of its own, it separates us, the main characters, from the NPC's; It's why I have... or _had_ cool powers and the other guards didn't. The only people who can enter the middle ground are those connected to reality and game. Because you're a real person who had to have code to exist in game you were allowed into the middle, the thing is, before the code was implemented into us we were like,, self aware with our own minds that connected us to reality so we could also come here." 

"Oh, that makes sense.. I think?"   
"Y-yeah. Ok, I think I can carry on with um my own actions now." He paused and started pulling at his jacket sleeve, don't fuck this up Benrey. Gordon continued to stand in silence, giving him time to collect his thoughts. 

"There's a problem with having a consciousness and a character code in the same body, I wasn't supposed to be conscious. My mind was meant to be empty for the code to be uploaded into. That wasn't the case. So then there were 2 entities in the same body having to fight for control. I... I lost that battle, for a _majority_ of the game I was controlled by the code. It... It really sucked. And in times I had more control they still influenced my own actions. So of course when I got h-here my first instinct was to get rid of the coding, I had one idea on how to do it and I was planning it out..." 

"When I saw you in the scientist uniform I thought you were one of the team so I ran to do my plan ahead of schedule, the team's code is so much fucking stronger then mine it completely brainwashed them past the point of their own consciousness, I figured I could rid myself of that fucking code ...physically..."   
"Oh.. So that's why you..."   
"Yeah... Remember what I said to you dude, a way to get rid of that aggressive angry feeling, I-I was getting rid of the code."   
"And it worked?"   
"Yeah! I'm finally free dude! I can do what _I_ want to do now." Benrey looked to the ground "I um, I figured I could try to be the good guy for once now I finally could and I... I tried to help them. It was the only way. When you're being puppeteered you don't just ask nicely for them to put you down. You have to cut the strings yourself. " 

"Benrey," He looked back to the bodies, the bandages Benrey pulled off himself to help with the injuries.   
"I tried! I... Their code ran away too, I had them tied up when I felt their presence... My code. Whenever they get close my body I feel really weird and shit. Almost like a warning. Gordon, they have minds of their owns they're probably going to do something and I... That's all I know... I'm sorry." 

He looked to the ground, fiddling with the string on his jacket and chewing on the 2nd one mindlessly, anything to distract himself from Gordon's gaze. Gordon raised his arm and then brought it down on Benrey's shoulder. Benrey's arms were shaking, he felt like he fucked everything up so he spilled everything he knew.   
"Thank you, Benrey."   
"I- I also knocked you out with my sweet voice so you wouldn't get hurt in the fight or try and stop me or do something stupid." Benrey blurted out, Gordon could feel the other man's eyes bore into his right arm with regret.   
"Um, thanks for looking out for me I guess, but I can take care of myself from now on thanks. No more knock-out sweet voice please." He only nodded in reply. 

Gordon left Benrey to stand there as he examined the sleeping science team. Then he turned his gaze to a pair of books laying discarded on the floor, they seemed to have fallen off the bookshelf from the sight of things. There was blood drying on the cover of one of the leather books and Gordon picked them up and examined them closely.   
"Soulmate diaries?" He read aloud. Benrey, who had busied himself by staring at the computer screens with a dead glare twisted over to see what Gordon was looking at.  
  
"Soulmate diaries? Hey I think I read they were working on those." Benrey walked back to the other computer and read what it said aloud "Soulmate diaries are to be used by two people as a way of communication, this new invention beats phones or texting or shit it's a book and whatever you write appears in the 2nd no matter how far away." 

"These could be useful if we ever get separated." Gordon suggested, he handed the 2nd diary to Benrey who took it with apprehension.   
"One issue." Benrey opened the diary "I know how to read sort of but I can't write. At all."   
"Huh- Why not?"   
"My hand just won't let me write English. It's too hard man. I can draw though."   
"Drawing will work, just don't draw anything inappropriate." Gordon said, Benrey rolled his eyes at the last part.   
"I mean it Benrey, if I see anything nsfw in here I'm burning your book." Benrey said nothing. 

"Anyway, I'm going off to find anymore medical supplies because lord knows we need it." Gordon told him, "Keep an eye on the others, if anything happens draw an emergency sign or something in the book." Gordon grabbed a pen from one of the desks and nudged the other to Benrey then wandered out the door. 

Great, Benrey was alone once again. He sat down next to the passed out team and pulled his knees to his chest again. He stimmed by rocking slowly, the panic of being alone hadn't set in yet, he still had the team at least. Benrey wondered if having a meltdown because he was alone was a good enough reason to draw in an emergency. 

To be very honest, being alone reminded Benrey of dying. It reminded him of the never-ending black void he saw in between death and respawning where he was all alone, and the void seemed to keep stretching and stretching and when he felt his body regenerate, walls propped up and started closing in and closing in but never close enough to crush him. He always respawns before they do. It also reminds him of before the void, laying down bleeding out from being crushed or shot at by pigs and having everyone move on as he felt life slip from him. 

Maybe he was just overreacting, but his rocking had sped up. He shifted gaze from the science team to the diary and to the computer to remind himself he was ok and *not* dying. However, he kept stalling on that one idea in his mind. Most of his powers came from his code, including his ability to 'not die', was that gone now? He sure as hell felt vulnerable enough to be perma-killed and in this half-real environment there was a chance sweet voice was all he had left.. 

Then it happened, and it all happened so fast. He hadn't felt their presence but he only had time to scribble an ! in the book before he passed out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit now these motherufkcers wont be living just in *my* head anymore and everyone else can see them *points at the mean evil codes* i have a hate/love with these guys becayse theyre so funny to write but oh my god they just cant chill tf out.
> 
> also elliot stop writing cliff hangers challenge


	7. oh no

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uauauauahahh i hate thiss  
> anyway i hope you enjoyed the brief exposition chapter, call it an ad-break. now back into the madness. yknow how it be.
> 
> and as i will probably say every chapter but; to the people who have bookmarked, left kudos, or like commented,, that kind of stuff? I Love You.
> 
> gordon wayned it and Benrey gets put back into the metaphorical washing machine.
> 
> **TW: kidnapping, and im not sure i *think* that might be it for now, my apologies if missed something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry tommy fans, this imposter is kind of a mean
> 
> hahhah imposter, funni among us refrence

They were arguing again. Quite typical for Virus and VB. VT had noticed that Virus didn't get along well with VB and VC, certainly it was for the fact Virus hated people who disobeyed them and VB did that quite often and VC always backed him up. That's why VT tried to stay out of Virus's way. He did his best to seem likeable but for some reason VB and VC never seemed fond of him. 

What a shame, honestly. They were just missing out, that must be it. At least Virus appreciated him, sometimes, on rare occasions, once every blue moon. They always used to praise VB for being strong and daring, now all they ever did was yell over petty shit. Maybe VT could be that, strong and daring and obeying every order given to him. 

Maybe he could prove himself right now. No one would notice ol' VT running off once again, VB and VC were both convinced he was crazy anyway. They would tell Virus that VT disappeared to find his dog and boom VT would return and blow everyone away. He needn't not prepare as his plan was already fitting together in his head. 

VT had already walked out the building, the only one to see him was VC who couldn't seem to care less as per usual. Well he preferred that, if he was honest with himself VC scared him to death. VT tried talking to VB once and they had a disagreement and VC started throwing hands. He was very strong when he needed to be that was for sure! 

VT traced their steps back to the building, excitement building in his chest. He saw that the window was still wide open, what a perfect opportunity. He peered inside, his height allowing him to do so quite easily. Inside he saw someone who greatly resembled Virus, his body was all bandages and bruises. Without a doubt that must be Virus's guy who had just attacked them. 

VT slowly climbed through the window, the other guy wasn't paying attention and was instead rocking back and forth while staring at the vessels. VT grabbed the keyboard from off the desk and without thinking he pummeled it into his head. He hit the ground immediately, he passed out but not without writing an ! in... The soulmate diary. How the fuck did he get his dirty hands on their beautiful creation. That didn't matter right now. The other was out cold and the 3 others were right for the taking, he stared at the body he used to control. Virus promised great things, it would come soon enough with VT's help. 

VT noticed the rope still left on the other side of the room, he flung it over his shoulder and brought it over to the unconscious vessels. He sat the up next to each other and wrapped the rope tightly and firmly. He noticed the soulmate diary now sitting against the other's leg, he picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. Might as well carry it for him. Using the rope he pulled the dead weight with him out the window and onto the asphalt and dragged them back to their lab, it was a long walk but not too long of course. 

When VT arrived back with his capture he pushed the door open enthusiastically and dumped the heavy vessels onto the ground. Luckily for him, Virus was standing right in the lobby and witnessed it all.   
"So,, that's where you went." Was all they said in acknowledgement to VT.   
"Yep! I got them, all four of them!" 

The word four was what got Virus's attention, they craned their neck and was met with the sight of their bloodied and bruised former body. They approached him and crouched down, reaching out a dark blue hand. They almost nudged his cheek before VT warned him off.   
"Um you said we couldn't properly touch them until time!" VT insisted. Virus groaned. 

"Fine. Take them to VB and VC for the chambers, I think I've told you what to do with.. Him.." Virus ordered, standing up and nodding at VT. Virus had no hesitation in leaving VT alone, no praise or acknowledgement for his efforts.   
"Just typical." VT drawled, dragging the four others away. VC and VB were close by and said nothing when offered the 3 to store them away as they had been told many times before. They simply unraveled the rope and took the 3 they needed. VT was left alone and he grabbed the smaller 4th body by the collar of his shirt. 

He opened his eye a crack and looked around at the foreign environment.   
"Huh." Was the only thing he could mutter out. VT winced, maybe he should've hit harder. Trying to ignore the body coming to his senses, VT dragged him to the other side of base to the room he was to be banished to, for the time being of course. 

By the time he made it there they were fidgeting with their sleeve and, with eyes fully open, they were flicking their gaze from corner to corner. VT tried to ignore them. He opened the door and stepped inside, they craned their neck to examine the new room. Thoughts were ravaging their mind. In the middle of the room was one of the features of this room, it wasn't anything special of course. Simply a thin metal collar connected to a chain that snaked into the ground that would keep a vessel in one spot. VT had actually invented it himself, but it wasn't his best work by any means. While they were still in a state of shock VT took the opportunity to lock the body into the collar. It snapped closed and VT pulled away, they had slumped to the ground and then shot up. They looked around, panicked and bewildered. 

"What." Was all they could muster, then they locked eyes with VT, "Oh, you." They turned their gaze to the bullet holes present in his arm. They didn't hurt but VT was pretty sure that they wouldn't heal over. 

* * *

Benrey could feel his consciousness slip back, his eyes however, were too heavy to open. He had an aching headache on the back of his head right under where his helmet didn't reach. He barely registered the fact he was being dragged over concrete, Benrey could barely process he was even awake. When he did manage to open his eyes he didn't recognize where he was, but he was too tired to care. 

It was only when he heard the snap of metal closing and the feeling of steel around his throat when he shot fully awake. His whole body felt like it was being dragged to the pole of metal he was resting against, it wasn't a pleasant texture or feeling at all. Then he saw Tommy, or 'Tommy' as he should say. His solid yellow code body glitching out every 2 seconds in an ominous manner. He noticed the two bullet holes in his arm, he only felt kind of bad. 'Tommy' looked Benrey up and down before sitting down at the desk in the room and tapping away. 

Benrey shifted on the spot. He decided that the room was too quiet, after all, being irritating was his best trait.   
"Where am I?" He asked.   
"Base."   
"How did I get here?"   
"I knocked you out."   
"Do you have a name or is it just To-"   
"It's VT." 'Tommy' spat with unexpected venom, Benrey shrunk back. Sheesh, touchy subject.   
"My name's Benrey." He informed the other. VT pondered on that sentence for a moment. Virus never mentioned the vessels names and no one ever brought them up. VT wasn't sure if they even *should* be saying his name. 

Benrey turned to examine more of the room.   
"You got PS3 in here or something, wait do you guys have a PS4 or PS5 either? I'm cool with anything."   
"No."   
"Well what's the point then." He groaned.  
"Nothing, just stay there."   
"You're dry as hell man, like not even a dry texter you just speak dry like damn add some flavour or something."   
"What would you like me to say?" VT drawled.   
"Uh idk, you're nothing like Tommy and it's disorienting."   
"You're very akin to Virus, driving my head in." VT winced when they realised they let that slip. Let's just hope Virus wasn't anywhere nearby.  
"Thanks." 

VT continued to type away, finishing the research Virus bugged everyone on. Benrey was bored as, he tried to bite and scratch the collar off but to no results. VT got tired of Benrey fucking around so he pulled the book out of his coat, placed it on the ground, and kicked it to where Benrey was sitting. Benrey reached over and picked it up.   
"Yo sick, thanks for this, um, peace offering."   
"The only peace I am offering is my own peace of mind."   
"Close enough."   
"Not at all." 

Benrey pulled his pen out of his pocket and flipped the book open, on the first page was his panicked ! that he did with his last few seconds of consciousness. Next to it was a few question marks in very neat handwriting, accompanying it was a few sentences that Benrey stared at a bit. He could read of course, just like, not well.   
'Benrey what happened? Where did you go?' Was what was written. 

Benrey flicked the pen lid off and started drawing. He drew himself sitting next to the team, then he drew VT coming up behind him and hit him. Then he drew a black square, he paired it with an arrow pointing to a drawing of the situation he was currently in; trapped with VT sitting opposite him, diary in hand. 

He chewed the end of the pen as he waited for Gordon's response. A minute later Gordon wrote something down.   
'Are you ok?' Benrey paused, a surprising first question. Benrey hadn't thought of it himself. He had an ever-present headache from the constant head trauma and the injuries over his body were stinging, he hated to acknowledge it but.. He felt himself growing weak as well, his body felt heavy and weighed down. But how was he meant to draw all that out. He started with a stick-figure, he then put X's all over his body where the pain was. 

Another sentence popped up.   
'Where are you?' Shit, Benrey wished he could give an answer but _someone_ wasn't going to let up. That someone was still clacking away at his little computer, Benrey couldn't make out what it was on his screen. Turning back he draw a simple ? and :( to say he had no clue. Next question was already written. 

'There's someone else with you right? Try getting info from them, anything about location, just anything. Please.' 

That would be hard. Benrey turned gaze to VT.   
"Yo." He started off.   
"What." VT drawled.   
"Where the fuck are we, where is this place?"   
"I already said base, why do you want to know." VT continued to type. "You're not using that diary to snitch are you?" Benrey gulped.   
"Huh? No. Don't be rude with your false accusations, no proof. I thought you were cool!" Benrey deflected, nailed it.   
"Whatever."   
  
Benrey drew and X, hoping it conveyed the message of 'No can do,' adequately. Then he got bored. Gordon was probably writing some dumb shit question so Benrey started doodling all over the 2nd page. He drew a dog, Sunkist, of course. He drew Tommy, the _real_ Tommy, next to him smiling and wearing his cool hat. Man, he wished Tommy was here, he always knew what to do. Then Benrey had a great idea for a drawing, he doodled himself and Gordon standing next to each other and committing the unheard of act of holding hands. Gordon draw a little ? next to it. 

Benrey raged when he saw Gordon scribble it out.   
'Focus on getting out.' Benrey was fucking fuming. How dare Gordon scribble out his drawing like that? Did he not realise it was of himself and Benrey? Was he dumb and blind!? Benrey proceeded to hit his head against the book before scribbling out his anger. Huge >:( face's and just random scribbles made by pressing the pen onto the paper way too hard. Gordon cringe moment. Not cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn shawty! ok!
> 
> im gonna go play undertale and watch wayne now goodbye.


	8. beyblade let it rip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VT fucked up and evil moments (not exaggeration gordon pls hurry tf up)
> 
> well uhhh here we go... Im so sorry in advance
> 
> TW: Suffocation, flashback(??), panic, self harm (scratching), so sorry if i missed anything /g

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone hates virus and benrey fucks up
> 
> ...it'll get a little better next chapter i swear

Gordon was finished searching the place to no avail, he couldn't find anything worthwhile so he walked back to the room empty-handed. However, his hand's weren't the only things empty. When he walked in his heart stopped at the scene, in the corner was nothing but a few smears of fresh blood. He looked around for Benrey, hoping and praying that he had just hidden himself and the others somewhere in the room. In paranoia Gordon threw all the empty lockers open. He searched around wildly. Then he turned to the Soulmate diary, he had been alerted that something was wrong when he saw the ! in it. The writing looked extremely rushed, it wasn't a good sign to begin with, Gordon should of expected this. 

Cursing under his breath, Gordon wrote out asking Benrey what happened where he was. Then he saw the keyboard laying on the ground with a trickle of blood running down it. Chills went up his spine when he connected it with the still open window. Benrey did mention that the Code's were probably going to do something,, but so soon? They must of been eager to seek revenge. Gordon's eyes were snagged on the gun laying abandoned on the floor, Benrey must of dropped it. If Gordon had to perform a rescue mission he might as well arm himself. 

He paced the room waiting for Benrey's response. He would occasionally call a name out, Benrey, Coomer, Bubby, Tommy, desperate for a response yet not trusting his voice to rise above a weak whisper.   
"Where the fuck are you?" Gordon whispered under his voice, his tone was angry yet ridden with worry. If you were to inform Gordon a few days ago that he would be pacing a room worrying about _Benrey_ he probably would've shot you. So there Gordon sat, loaded gun in his right hand with an open diary in the other all whilst pacing a blood-soaked room in the middle of absolutely-fucking-nowhere. 

It was probably 2 minutes later when Gordon got any sort of response. He dropped everything in his hands out of shock and pure relief. He quickly scrambled to pick up the diary, he watched closely as Benrey drew out the events that had taken place. Gordon did his best to piece together what happened, apparently Benrey was knocked out, then a black square, probably meaning he was unconscious while he was moved. Then he drew himself locked to the ground by a collar with what he assumed was Tommy's code sitting on a chair next to him. That was just great wasn't it. 

'Are you ok?' Gordon wrote out, trying to not let his anxiety show in his writing. He watched as Benrey scribbled out a little stickman and put X's over supposedly where he was in pain. Hopefully it wasn't fatal.   
'Where are you?' Gordon asked hopelessly, his only reply was a '? :(' which wasn't good.   
'There's someone else with you right? Try getting info from them, anything about location, just anything. Please.' He was desperate, his only reply was a X, yet again, not good. 

Then Gordon sighed as Benrey started just scribbling on the second page, he recognised his first doodle as Tommy and Sunkist, it wasn't half bad. Then he started drawing out what he assumed was himself and Benrey holding hands, there was a large smile drawn on both of their faces. Gordon scribbled it out.   
'Focus on getting out.' He need info to get Benrey out and he was just wasting time. 

This clearly wasn't the best idea when deeply pressed scribbles covered the page. There was an occasional >:( as well. Clearly that wasn't the reaction Benrey was wanting from Gordon. Fine, Gordon flipped to the next page and sketched out a copy of Benrey's image. Gordon would brag that his looked way better but whatever, this wasn't a competition. The scribbling had ceased, Benrey only starting drawing again to draw a little heart between the drawing of them. Gordon rolled his eyes and added a 2nd heart next to Benrey's, just so he wouldn't go off again. Yeah, that's why. 

Whatever, clearly Benrey was having issues finding the area he was kept so Gordon would have to take matters into his own hands. He looked around the room before slipping out of the window. He tucked the book under his arm and kept the gun in his pocket. Gordon started to walk out, he tried looking for trails of blood or anything. Last time he looked for someone they left a trail of sweet wrappers and it helped tremendously. Gordon's eyes locked on the smear of blood followed by dusty footprints. Unluckily for him, the wind had begun picking up and the footprints were already fading. Gordon went on to search for anymore blood splatters or literally any other clue of Benrey's location, now with strong winds rustling Gordon's hair and the pages of his book. 

The only things he could find were small smudges of blood and torn cloth. None lead him any closer. He looked back into the diary to see a few more scribbles and nothing more. This was gonna be hard. 

* * *

The real Tommy wouldn't do this, totally against OSHA regulations. Whatever, he just hoped Gordon would find the place soon, the collar locking him in place was starting to press into his throat and it was very uncomfortable. He started to scratch at the metal and VT noticed. 

"By the way that collar is gonna keep tightening so good luck."   
"Are.. Are you fucking kidding me?"   
"I invented it myself."   
"What.. Why would you invent it to _do_ that?" Benrey hissed.   
"Well, I designed it after a beyblade if that answers your question." VT shrugged with a smirk on his face.  
"I think you are severely misinformed on what a beyblade is." Every second that passed Benrey became more and more scared of the other in the room with him. 

They felt panic rise in them and breathed deeply to calm down, if they started to hyperventilate they would start losing air quicker. VT might just be trying to fuck with them, yeah that was it. No need to panic about the idea that the collar would start suffocating him to death, no need at all.   
"You invented this huh? Did you invent a way to remove it?" Benrey continued to scratch at the metal while trying to convince himself he was so calm. 

"Oh yeah," VT reached down and picked up a really fucked up looking key.  
"It's a key, I think that's self explanatory. It just opens and boom you're free but... I don't think you'll be needing this." VT continued to smirk as he slipped the key into his pocket.   
Benrey immediately began writing down about the situation, there was a chance the collar was tightening and would eventually cut off his oxygen and there was a way of opening it but VT had it. Then VT shot up from his desk, he was grinning wildly and threw the door open.

Benrey looked at his hands that were shaking, probably from the adrenaline of the whole fucking situation. Benrey spat out a flew blue sweet voice orbs that surrounded him. He could only manage very small orbs and they barely helped him calm at all. It was better then nothing. He curled in on himself and spat out a few more orbs. That was it, his throat felt dry and he didn't think he could manage anything else. 

VT strutted down the hallway with his head held high. VC and VB were standing in the lobby and eyed him as he walked past.   
"Hey aren't you supposed to be with the others?" VT taunted.   
"They're fucking unconscious, you idiot. Mind your business!" VB snapped, VT recoiled. He simply assumed that they would need to stand guard, no need to be so mean. He tried to not let that interaction dampen his bright mood as he walked over to the room he just knew they would be sitting in. 

It was the cams room. This room had cameras connecting to the whole base. Sitting in a desk chair and staring straight up at the cams was Virus. They looked calm as they stared up and examined everything happening in the base. There was an image of the vessels in a dark room, their faces were obscured, weird lighting. 

VT cleared his throat, Virus spun the chair around.  
"Sup." They stared straight through VT. The yellow virus took steps forward.  
"I finished!" He declared, puffing out his chest.  
"Finished what. I forgot." Virus said either to fuck with him or like, genuinely forgot. Always hard to tell with them. VT pulled the USB all there programming they had done out and presented it to them.  
"The project _you_ assigned _me_!" VT said proudly as ever. Virus snatched it and looked it over.  
"I forgot I assigned you something lol." Virus shrugged, pronouncing lol in the most antagonising way.

"You said it was important to the plan.." VT huffed, pride dampened.  
"I say a lot of things."  
VT wished the leader was literally anyone else. Virus sat up from their seat and trailed off to the computer room. VT followed closely.

Virus booted up their computer and placed the USB in, they examined the programming for a moment before remembering what the fuck they told VT to do.  
"Oh yeah haha I remember this." Virus said in their constant bored tone of voice, but their eyes had lit up and the corners of their mouth twitched into a wicked grin. This bit of programming they forced VT to work on would be very important for their plan. 

"So I did the programming so the cords should be in order and ready for use." VT explained, "In case you forgot." A hint of venom was to be found in that last remark.   
"Cool ok you can go now." Virus barely shifted.  
"I... This is one of, if not the most, important part of our operation and you don't even care." VT said through gritted teeth.  
"Yeah and I'm asking you to go now. Please." Virus pulled the USB out and started walking back to the camera room.

VT fumed, he barely saw Virus outside of that room. They basically lived in there. Not that any of them minded they were barely present, it wasn't like the others liked Virus. But it was slightly unnerving knowing they could be staring at you through the cameras at any moment. Even right now. VT stormed off.

All he wanted and all he asked for was recognition, he wanted to be in charge and make the orders but he was stuck doing lesser work to no praise. He hated Virus, he hated their fucking guts and everything they said or did. All he wanted is their position. In a blind rage VT stormed back, ignoring the passing glances of VB and VC, he didn't care about their judgements right now. 

VT walked back into the room he kept Benrey, no cameras. Not one. Benrey was curled up with the soulmate diary and still scratching at the metal around his throat, there were clear marks now scratched permanently into the steel. VT had enough, he had enough of everyone. No one cared about his work, or him. He stared down at the soulmate diary currently tucked under the other's arm. He eyed it with an idea blossoming in his head.

If VT couldn't establish his leadership the natural way, store bought was fine. VT leaned down, Benrey looked up and made direct eye contact with him.   
"I have an idea." VT said, coldly.  
"I'd love to hear it." Benrey said with a cautious waver in his voice.  
"We'll do a trade, you give me the soulmate diary and I'll let you out of here." VT picked the key out from his pocket and rolled it on his palm, "How does that sound?"  
Benrey's eyes widened at the opportunity. He held the book closely to his chest and then gazed closer at VT.  
"Why do you need the diary?"  
"You're talking to someone right? I'll help them too." VT grinned. Benrey thought this over, there didn't seem to be any malice behind VT's eyes. And hey, this was the code of Tommy after all, he trusted Tommy. And he was getting desperate.

So Benrey held the book out for the other. VT smiled and put it under their arm. Benrey felt the collar cut into his skin slightly and let out a panicked breath.  
"Ok please let me go now?" Benrey whispered, not trusting his voice to not break if used normally. VT paused as they made their descent to the other side of the room.  
"Yeah." He walked over to a large switch at the back of the room.  
"What are you doing?" Benrey asked, no response. VT grabbed the large switch and flipped it up, the whole room when pitch black. Benrey choked.

"Maybe, if I kill you all now I'll finally get some fucking recognition around here." VT breathed heavily.   
"Huh." Benrey said, almost too quiet to hear.  
"Tsk tsk, the other 3 will be easy to kill off with VC and VB neglecting them, and oh how easy it will be to get the last one here now with the soulmate diary." VT mused.

"NO!" Benrey flinched forward in instinct to lash out at the vague and tall figure but the collar dug straight into his throat and threw him back.   
"Oh and look how dark it is, with 3/4 unconscious and the last having issues with dark rooms oh however will you get out?" VT teased, he tossed the key onto his desk, "Won't need that now! I guess you'll just have to stand up and get it yourself, oh and.. The collar gets pretty fucking small so I wish you the best of luck." VT laughed despicably.  
"Please, don't hurt the others don't." Benrey pleaded, his body was shaking.  
"And why should I?"  
"Don't hurt Gordon, don't please." He should of stayed up, he shouldn't of looked away from the window. He was leading Gordon to his death, he couldn't stand the thought of it.

"Maybe, maybe not." VT stepped out the door and slammed it shut. Now that Benrey could process entirely what happened everything started to sink in. The room was so dark, so much like the void. With the collar pressing against his throat Benrey genuinely believed he was dying again. He scratched and scratched at the collar and his throat praying it would loosen but all it served was a painful reminder that he was still living, the only thing grounding him to that reality.

But he couldn't focus on a single thing, in the void there is nothing but black darkness, he desperately tried to zero in on an object in the room to remind himself he was alive but it was _pitch fucking black_. It was slowly sinking in that if he wasn't already dying he would die in here, Gordon wouldn't be able to come in and save him because of his fear of dark rooms which was again, Benrey's fault. And who got him into this situation, Benrey, _once again_. Master of good decisions. 

But Benrey was just _waiting_ for the seemingly stretching walls of the void to come crashing in on him all at once. He was dying, he was dying, he was dying. He curled into himself and kept scratching. He couldn't feel the pain anymore, it seemed like the feeling of it was floating above him and completely disconnected. His breathing was quick and desperate now. God, he didn't want to die again. Not now. He didn't have his respawn powers anymore and he knew it. He looked around the room panicked. Were the walls still stretching or were they about to close in?

If he felt his consciousness slipping he didn't acknowledge it, what was worse? A horrifying reality or a fate sealing sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys. Benrey is in danger and needs your help. To help him all he needs is your credit card and the 3 wacky numbers on the back. god bless /j
> 
> all i know how to write is pain. Ok goodbye i hate this chapter laugh out loud
> 
> (also idk what to call it but the feeling of pain floating above was just copy pasted from a real thing i felt. idk what the fuck it was but was weird as hell)


	9. bambambam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wifi stop dipping on me challenge 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so messy sorry 

This was wrong. Gordon opened the soulmate diary to see writing he didn't do, Benrey couldn't write...  
'I know where the base is.' The writing was so *neat* as well, something was off and it sent a shiver straight up his spine.  
'You're not Benrey are you :/'  
'Darn. Guess the game is up. That was quick.'  
'Who the hell are you then??'  
'There's no time for asking questions such as these, do you want to know where the base is or not?'  
'Yes. and wdym no time?'  
'Lives are on the line. Mr. freeman. :).'

Gordon's breath hitched. He watched as the other person drew out a map from the building he just exited over to 'The Base', whatever that was. As soon as it was drawn Gordon went running, his shoes hit the ground faster then he was able to comprehend. Sweat was pouring down his forehead as he approached a miserably painted black building. 

He pushed the doors open with zero hesitation and stormed inside, hand wrapped in a death grip around the gun with his finger right by the trigger, careful not to shoot himself in the leg. He elevated himself onto the tips of his feet to make as minimal noise as possible, hoping to not alert the Codes. It was until he saw a flash of yellow when his throat dried and he was standing face to face with one.

"Mr. Freeman." Was all he said.  
"What the hell man? Where's Benrey?" He pulled the gun out of his pocket an inch as a threat. The imposter who merely resembled his friend Tommy sighed.  
"Why should I tell you?" A sad tinge was present in every word he uttered but somehow not an inch of grief or regret was found in his face or body language, nor his words.  
"Show me or I shoot!" Gordon pointed the gun to 'Tommy's' head.  
"I think you are misunderstanding the situation you are currently in. I am not helping you, you would be dead on the floor if I hadn't made a promise. The only reason I even guided you here is because I want to see this place burnt to the fucking ground." He went off on tangent about no-one appreciating his work but none of it was comprehensible. 

"Whatever, I digress. He's down the hall behind us, the room should be easy to guess but... Good luck." There was such malice and venom dripping off the last two words and with that the yellow man slipped right by Gordon and disappeared. Gordon wasted no time thinking and dashed down the hallway. 

There were three doors, two on the side and one directly in the middle of the hallway. The side doors were locked and the middle one was open by a crack. Gordon couldn't see a shred of light inside. His skin crawled and memories of the ambush seeped back. What if this was another trap, would he stoop so low? Gordon leaned against the door and called out.  
"Benrey?" The sound of someone sitting up way to fast and the rattling of chains was heard from inside. After taking a deep breath Gordon pushed the door open and was met with pitch black. 

"Where's the fucking light?" He groaned, "Benrey can you sweet voice again? Or not?" No reply, must be a no then. With no direction Gordon started walking, he hugged himself as he walked, holding tightly onto his right arm. Don't panic Gordon, if anything or anyone tries to ambush you again you have your weapon, stay calm. Then he smacked his head against the wall. Gordon stumbled back but soon his left arm bumped a lever. Gordon wasted no time in flicking the lever up and relief melted through him as the lights flickered on. But oh was it a sight to behold. 

Benrey had shifted himself to be facing Gordon's direction so Gordon had no time to prepare for the sight of it. The collar around his throat was still shrinking and there was scratch marks around his throat and on the metal. Benrey didn't think he could make a single word out. His throat was too tight to even let out sweet voice. Before Gordon could say a word Benrey shifted and pointed to the desk. Gordon didn't question it and ran to the desk. 

On the desk was a closed computer, a stack of scattered papers, numerous pens and pencils, and a rusty looking key. Gordon's eyes were caught on the key, he picked it up to inspect it and Benrey stamped to get his attention. Gordon turned to face the other.  
"Need this?" He asked. Benrey nodded and lifted an arm to point at the back of the collar. Worth taking a shot, Gordon moved over and leaned down next to Benrey and locked the key into the lock at the back of the collar.

The collar starting widening and then snapped open and fell off Benrey's neck to his feet. Benrey finally let out a breath, wheezing as he did so. He rubbed at the pain around his throat. There was a red mark encircling it from the pressure.   
"You good now? Can you speak? That thing looked pretty tight." Gordon offered his hand and Benrey took it to help himself stand up. Benrey was still calming from his panic, he genuinely thought he had died until he heard Gordon speak.

The two stood there for a while until Benrey trusted himself to speak again.  
"Th-thank you." He stammered over his words and pushed his helmet over his head, completely obscuring his eyes.  
"Are you good now?" Benrey hesitated, almost hyperventilating before giving a noncommittal nod, "That's fair, you'll feel better soon, ok? Now, what do we do now?"  
"V-VT said he's gonna kill the others so like we should try to find them and then we.." Benrey trailed off.  
"Then what?" Gordon knew neither of them had an answer, what was the end goal here. Currently the objective was to survive and neither had been doing the best job at it so far. 

"I think that VT is going against the other codes but not for us either, I think he's just mean and wants everyone to die. I think the other codes just don't like us." Benrey explained.  
"So VT's an independent party here, now it's just Real VS Code."  
"And we're 2 to 3 right now."  
"You've faced the codes before, how tough are they exactly?"  
"Tough, man. But they could've been holding back. Like they were still connected to a stable vessel but now they can do hacks and shit."  
"Well how the fuck are we gonna beat them."  
"Let's just try to avoid them."  
"Good idea, seeing one was enough for me, personally." 

Gordon looked around the room and then took Benrey's hand in his own, he wasn't sure whether it was that or the possible windpipe damage that made breathing suddenly become difficult.   
"Dude are you ok," Gordon asked cautiously, noticing Benrey's shallow breathing. Benrey then promptly had a coughing fit before steadying himself.  
"Hurt."  
"Let's put finding any form of consumable liquid on our to-do list, I would say water but the last time I've seen that feels like years."  
Benrey's pace of walk was slow as ever and Gordon suppressed the urge to push forward and slowed himself down. 

"So, the plan. Find the others before 'VT' does and free them and then figure out how the fuck to get out of here all without being caught by the code guys." Gordon relayed, "By the way, why is his name VT?"  
"That's what he said his name is, I don't think he wants or deserves to be called Tommy." Benrey huffed.  
"Speaking of that, he has the soulmate diary right? That means if we get separated again we can't communicate.."  
"Then let's stick together, no splitting up, ok?"  
"Splitting up is not on my to-do list, don't worry."

* * *

Well, well, well. Virus shifted in their seat, eyes drawn to the other side of the building. Ever since VT had returned with the vessels the target he had on Benrey had barely shifted. Now it was moving, how odd. VT must be behind this, Virus turned back to the cameras and examined them closely. 

Eyes squinting as they scanned the screens. Ah, of course. Another vessel. That was quite annoying. Their eyes turned to the intercom, they would have to separate the two. Their target was only Benrey at this point but there could be use to find in the other, they had... encountered said vessel before but always fled before they were face to face. 

Virus refused to call it cowardice, they were simply staying on task was all. But Virus grabbed the microphone for the intercom and slipped the camera in their pocket. They clicked the button and the intercom came on with a sharp whine. Virus watched the two freeze. They must of heard that.

* * *

A high pitched noise stopped Benrey and Gordon in their tracks, they both turned to each other with a quizzical look on their face. There was a crackling noise of someone moving around before settling.  
"Do you have your passport?"  
Benrey froze.  
"That wasn't me!" He spat out as fast as he could. Gordon only groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
"What the fuck is even happening?" He sighed. They could hear maniacal laughing over the intercom. Then there was a loud thud and the laughing got even louder.  
"Aww man that never gets old." Was heard faintly.

* * *

Oh my god this was fucking hilarious. Virus was shaken with laughter and their own joke, if you could even *call* it one, and as they watched Gordon and Benrey's horror from the comfort of their chair their body was so wracked with laughter they slipped and fell off the chair and slammed against the ground. This did not cease the laughing and Virus wiped shiny white tears off their face with the back of their hand.  
"Aw man that never gets old." They giggled, and then Virus got to their feet and placed themself back in the chair. They had the microphone for the intercom in hand, licking their lips they prepared to cause more confusion.

"You should've seen the look on your faces that was *priceless*" Virus snorted. Virus swung their legs back and forth as they sat in the chair as they were used to doing.  
"But who let you losers out? and in? Top 10 questions scientists couldn't answer?" Virus watched the two try and hide, funny. They pressed a button on their desk and the cameras shifted, bingo, there you are, tag you're it.

"I can still see you idiots." Virus warned "And boy I wish I didn't! You two are so ugly on cams. Maybe get that checked out? It would benefit us all." They teased. The cameras were fuzzy and Virus wasn't able to make out their faces anymore but they probably looked scared out of their mind screaming. Virus liked to think they were praying for mercy from them. Let them pray! God wouldn't answer.

However, Virus still needed a plan. VT was off doing whatever he did and VB and VC wouldn't listen to them to them on a good day so once again they would have to commit the impossible task of trying to convince the others to help, Virus might be high and mighty but they were by far the *weakest* code minus their little trick, kind of sucked to have to rely on others but if they were anything they were good at twisting minds.

They needed to separate them but there was no clear option on how to pull that off. Every single time Virus thought Benrey was alone Gordon would suddenly appear out of goddamn _nowhere_. God, could they take a few seconds apart please? Please? And after this they would have to pry them apart by *force*.

Virus cursed under their breath, why couldn't of Gordon just minded his business? They had Benrey just where they needed him, alone and unable to get away and then ohhh ohhhhhh Gordon walks in and finds the perfectly unsuspicious base somehow ohh ohhhhhh he's just *that* cool! FUCK GORDON! If they could they would kill Gordon with their own two hands. Maybe the military should've cut his head off instead of his arm, Virus giggled maliciously at that thought.

When they were co-opting the body with *Benrey* back at Black Mesa he was whining so much over Gordon's arm, ohhh it's so sad now he's mad at us, it was for the better. Virus needed Gordon to keep his distance, which was proving very difficult with Benrey's fucking infatuation with him. And besides, Gordon could just grow his arm back and he did it twice now. Nothing to cry about yet that's all they fucking heard for days after it happened. 

Virus clicked through the cams, after spending nearly every waking hour in the camera room since they got here they knew the base like the back of their hand. There was one area that would work smoothly in breaking the two up. As long as no-one interfered this would go well. But how to get them there... Oh of course...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry if theres any mistakes im too busy to read it over again


	10. bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gordon never learns 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this chapter sux i tried editing it but im stressed as hell and just had sensory overload so im not doing so gr8 thats on me im just gonna post and not look back

"What the fuck was that." Gordon sighed.  
"I think... I think it was my code." Benrey's eyes glazed over "They're here.."  
"Don't freak out ok?" Gordon jumped, "They won't find us if we keep a low profile so just stay with me and let's go." Gordon grabbed onto the other mans arm and pulled him along.

Merely a few steps away from the hallway was the exit doors. Gordon enthusiastically pulled on them only to freeze when he realised it was _locked_. Maybe it was a push door, click click. Nothing.   
"The doors are locked." Benrey observed, looking over Gordon's shoulder.  
"I think VT did this." Gordon mused. Benrey nodded, his chin pressing against Gordon's shoulder and singing out a tune of white and red sweet voice. Gordon would've elbowed him away if Benrey wasn't in his current state. Benrey leans against Gordon's back, they're probably tired.

Gordon patted Benrey on the arm to keep him awake.  
"C'mon dude we can't sleep yet." Gordon nudged him again. Benrey murmured something. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and then just _stared_ at Gordon for a few minutes. Gordon grabbed Benrey again and they kept walking. Gordon didn't know where they were going but they had to find something, and hopefully not those code motherfuckers. 

"Maybe the science team knows more about what we're supposed to do after, but even if they don't we have to find them before VT does." Benrey spoke absentmindedly.  
"Any clue where they are?" Gordon interrogated.  
"Uhh probably near where I was kept but like I don't know. All I remember was getting hit and waking up all tied up." Benrey mumbled.  
"Do you think the others are all separated too or were you just kept somewhere else for the fun of it."  
"Knowing them, it could be anything."

Then Benrey peered down at the ground, it was dusty. Looking behind them were their footprints. It figured that no one would've cleaned the place up. He kept watching the ground while walking, arm linked up to Gordon's so he wouldn't bash his head into the wall by mistake. Then he saw something strange. They were in a larger room now with a few chairs and other decorations strewn around with a lot of ways leading out. There was a different set of footprints leading into one exit and then back out. 

Without realising it Benrey turned direction to start following the prints. Without question Gordon followed. The hallway was starting to grow dark. Benrey kept his eyes focused on the foot prints and Gordon, trying to distract himself from the dark. Both Gordon and Benrey's grip on each other tightened. 

The footprints lead to an open door that showcased an empty and dark room.   
"That's strange." Gordon leaned inside and flicked a light switch on. Inside was still pretty dim, the light was a singular half-dead lightbulb that's light was tinged with orange. The only thing of interest inside was a desk and a whole lot of monitors. 

The monitors were large and there were tons of them, each one was displaying a different part of the base. Even one for outside of the room. There was a black desk chair sitting in front of it, upon further inspection the chair was worn down with use and the arm rests had been torn up. There was a pile of trash and litter next to the chair as well. Benrey froze when he stared up at the monitors and saw the codes of Bubby and Coomer on screen, VB and VC. They were just leaving a dark room and started walking away. Gordon and Benrey watched them move to the open space they had just been in. 

Thankfully they didn't go down the exit to the camera room and down a different way. While walking down they bumped into VT and both Gordon and Benrey physically recoiled at the sight of him. VT started talking to VB and VC who both looked completely disinterested. Then VT brought something up that made both of them brighten. Without hesitating they rushed off and off screen. VT looked sly but merely started walking away.

"That was.. Confusing?" Gordon started.  
"It would be great if these things had sound." Benrey hissed, "What did VT even say?"  
"Wait, I think we should look at the room that Coomer and Bubby's code was in. There could be something there."  
"But what about them just running off? I think they're scheming."  
"Our priority is ensuring the safety of the others before VT just straight up kills them."

Benrey couldn't argue with that. The two left the room and snuck back into the open space. They tried to be light on their feet and make as little noise as possible to not alert the code's but Benrey had started limping a while ago which was causing a bit of noise, the sound of it was slight enough to not be a pressing issue.

They found the exit to the hallway VB and VC had left and walked down it. Gordon abandoned Benrey for a second to try and open to door to find out that door was also locked. He pressed his forehead against the steel door and sighed.  
"Locked?"  
"Locked." Gordon regained his composure "Those bastards."  
Things suddenly felt very tense.  
"Do you think VB and VC have a key to get in?"  
"Maybe they'll drop it somewhere? I don't know?"

Benrey was distracted by a flicker of light.  
"Don't move." He told Gordon and left. Gordon didn't have to be asked twice, slipping from standing to resting on the ground with disappointment and stress weighing him down. There was a loud thud from a bit off along with a crinkling noise and Benrey arrived back holding _soda_.  
"Found soda machine." He gave one to Gordon.  
"Thank god, I'm so thirsty right now." They both clicked open the soda can's and downed that shit in a matter of seconds.

"Now that's over with we Gotta find the key to rescue our friends." Gordon stood himself up and walked out the hallway, he reached into his pocket and wrapped his hand around the gun.  
"We'll find those motherfuckers and I'll shoot 'em up."   
"Woah Gordon violence compilation."   
"I'm so mean and evil now."  
"Love it."

Gordon recognised the corridor VB and VC had went down and, trying to suppress his fear, trudged inside with Benrey lagging behind. Gordon had raised the gun out of his pocket and his eyes flicked back and forth to look out for the two Codes. Benrey was watching from behind in case they tried to ambush them. Both of them were extremely on edge and any sudden creak or groan of the building made them flinch. 

But they both arrived in to the end of the corridor without any issue. In fact, the room was empty apart from a desk, two chairs, and a vent in the corner.   
"Did they leave already?" Benrey wondered.  
"I guess so?"

Gordon walked over to the desk and started inspecting it, maybe they left the key there? He opened the desk drawers and rummaged through them. No key.  
"This is just ridiculous." Gordon sighed, "I just wanna go home man, I wanna see Joshua again and just have a normal life."  
"Wait.... Oh, that uh reminds me that if we get out of here I don't have a home technically. I lived inside Black Mesa for all I can remember and technically I'm not meant to be real I don't have anything, can't have shit in Detroit."

"Tell you what. If you keep being good and not like betraying me or whatever, don't call my son shit again, help me get our friends out, and survive, you can live with me."  
"Hm, that's a pretty tall order Gordon.."   
"Just stay out of trouble and stay alive, all I'm asking."  
"Deal. Let's go gamers."

Benrey wandered to the other side of the room, he wasn't really doing much because he had no clue where he was or what the fuck was happening. But on the wall he had noticed a switch, maybe a light switch? The room was pretty dim right now. Without thinking he flicked the switch and, to his surprise, the back wall opened up to reveal a second room.  
"Hey what, what did you do?" Gordon didn't sound mad, he actually sounded impressed.  
"Flipped the switch bro, just flicked that shit." 

Gordon abandoned the desk to walk into the next half of the room. Benrey felt himself tense, something wasn't right.. They just stood in place and Gordon searched through shit. Maybe if their eyes hadn't unfocused and they were more attentive. Maybe if they had seen the liquid pooling at the vent. Maybe they would of seen this coming..

The lights were cut. All light in the room was out in a second and Gordon yelled in surprise. Benrey couldn't process what was happening enough to realise why this was bad. Then there was a loud thud as the wall that opened closed once again. They were shocked back to reality when they heard Gordon on the other side of the wall slamming his fists against it and calling out, they couldn't quite make out what he was saying. Benrey walked over to the wall and weakly tried to pull at it. 

There was a horrible slurping noise coming from next to him, the vent.. He heard someone breathing.. Fuck, fuck, a code! Benrey felt a slimy hand try to grab him and he bolted away. He crashed into the wall behind him before regaining himself and running down the hallway into the open space. He shouldn't of left Gordon but panic had washed over him and he couldn't think straight.

Benrey thought he was safe in the light of the open space until he felt his heart pounding and a wave of nausea washing over him and dunking his head into a pool of static. Their legs were a few seconds from giving out. God they were so tired, they would let their heavy eyes rest if it weren't for the adrenaline pumping through his body. 

He hit himself in the head until his consciousness would cooperate but white noise was filling his mind. He tried to lean against the wall and keep himself steady but he felt so weak. Benrey's legs gave out and he passed out before he could even hit the floor.

...

Virus bid farewell to the camera room, the spot of the base they literally never left. Unfortunately it would be necessary for their plan. Now to confront VT, they shivered, what a nightmare. They checked the cams for VT's location one last time before departing. 

He had been stealing cans of soda from one of their many soda dispensers in the kitchen. Virus knew that VT didn't like them, never liked them. VT liked their position of power, and because of that VT would do nearly anything to try and get in their good books for some privileges. Hopefully, after their attempts to distance from VT they wouldn't be too mad.

Unfortunately that was just the case. VT's face had dropped into a tight grimace upon seeing Virus show up uninvited.  
"What do you want huh? Soda? Maybe another invention you won't care about?" VT spat with venom.  
"Hey man I don't know why you're so mad right now."  
"Maybe because I've done so much and you just brush me aside? No credit for hauling all _four_ vessels here and inventing shit for _you_ that you barely even acknowledge me for? Fucking idiot."  
"Damn that's kind of shit of me huh."  
"Nice self awareness, now go away."

"Wait dude I need your help."  
"Ohh of course _now_ you need me!"  
"Ok then! Show me how you're going to fix this huh? You got a better plan?"  
"Fine then! Fine, will you leave me alone after this?"  
"I would love to."  
"Then? What do I gotta do for you? Again?" VT leaned against the soda dispenser, arms crossed.  
"I just need you to convince VB and VC to lead the two vessels to that room, the moving room, you know the one. Just keep them there and stay hidden until one of those fuckers moves into the 2nd half of the room and keep them apart."  
"How do you expect me to do that?"  
"Tell them I said I'll let them bring the clones back."  
"...That could work."

"Yeah, 'course it will. So.. Uh, thhaannkksss?" Virus had never said that before. VT grinned widely.   
"Acknowledgement? Thanks for my efforts? You going soft, Virus? Character development perhaps?"  
"Fuck you. Bye."   
And with that they parted ways.

Virus walked past into the open space but froze when they heard voices. One voice way too close to their own. The vessels, fuck. Virus was suddenly thankful for their unstable body allowing them to make themselves the consistency of water. Realising the voices were getting closer they melted into a puddle and hid in a shaded corner. It would be so perfect to attack if _Gordon_ wasn't there.

Oh how Virus despised that nuisance. The two vessels made their way down the corridor that led to the camera room. Things were fitting into place so perfectly. Virus let their body resume to a normal form. They padded off through the base, was best to stay out of the way until VB and VC completed their part of the plan. If this worked... Then they could move on to the others.

...

Oh god, what the fuck? What? What happened? Gordon slammed his fists on the brick wall. Did Benrey do this? Was he even able to do something like again? Did he have the resolve? Could it be that he betrayed him after all this? Gordon almost felt tears prick at his eyes at the thought of being betrayed _again_. He heard someone, Benrey, walk up to the wall. Then there was a slurping noise and those steps became panicked and far away. 

Gordon pulled the gun out his pocket and prepared to shoot. There was another slurp and Gordon realised with a terrible chill that there was a vent in this side of the room as well. A blue goop seeped out of the vent cover and took the form of Bubby sitting on top of it.

"B-bubby?" Gordon whispered, pointing the gun at his head.  
"It's VB to you." The code glitched.  
"What the fuck does VB mean, I'm serious."  
"Virus Bubby. Motherfucker you don't know acronyms?"  
"Whatever, so are you a code or a virus, I can't tell?"

"We _were_ codes."  
"What happened to that?"

"The vessels we were meant to inhabit were already fucking alive. You know how hard it is to stick to your programming when you have a whole other asshole in your head trying to do something else entirely. The absolute lengths we had to go to to get any control _infected_ our coding. Which really sucks but being a virus now is so much easier, no rules no expectations. Now we're gonna get those vessels back, _empty_ this time."

"Why... Why are you even telling me this? Aren't you supposed to keep this confidential or something?"  
"And? What are you gonna do about it? There's no reason to be mysterious about it because it's not like you can interfere. Plus, it's nice to vent after being stuck with these assholes."

Oh. So him explaining their point as viruses was just another way to fuck with him. Mind games, of course.  
"You don't know that." Gordon defended.  
"Go on then. Stop us?"  
Gordon raised the gun.  
"Puh-lease. Our bodies can change consistency with ease what are you going to accomplish?"  
Gordon lowered the gun.  
"Ok... Why are you here apart from exposition."  
"Just keeping you and Benrey separated."  
"Really?" Gordon sighed in frustration "Just that?"  
"Yup."

"Listen, man. I just want to find my friends before VT kills them off and then get out of here."  
"VT won't kill."  
"He said he would!"  
"Oh yeah then he definitely would."   
"God this is... Hurting my brain."  
"Any sort of thinking would do that to you Gordon." VB said snarkily.  
"I can tell you're trying to insult me."  
"Oh no Gordon stop thinking you're going to get a migraine."  
"Shut the fuck up."

"When can I leave here?"  
"Uh never? Bro? Stupid fucking idiot? You die in here?" If VB had any visible pupils they would of rolled their eyes. Gordon felt panic rise in his throat and without thinking he shot at VB.   
"Asshole." The bullet went straight through VB's body as if his body was nothing more then jelly.  
"Let me out of here and give me the key to save my friends."  
"No? You can't make me do shit bro."

More bullets passed through VB's jelly virus body.  
"This would be easier for you if I had a stable body but noooo." VB snarled.  
"Just fucking die already." Gordon yelled.  
"No!"

"What will it take for you to give me the key and let me go?" Gordon pleaded.  
"What a change in approach." VB noted.  
"Just tell me!" Gordon roared.  
"Fine! Fine! Uhh, I just want to program the coomer clones with VC. Literally the only reason I'm doing this is Virus said we can bring those bad boys back."  
"But.. Why?"  
"Fun."  
"Fair enough? But what's stopping you?"

"The key to the programming room is in Virus's room which they _never fucking leave_!"  
"What room.."  
"The camera room, they're a fucking control freak and just stare at the monitors all day."  
"I've been in there."

VB brightened.  
"You have?"  
"Sure, they weren't in there and I bet if we worked together we could find the key... We could swap?"  
VB slipped through the vent. Gordon waited for a minute and then the brick wall opened back up to show an expectant VB on the other side who was bouncing on the balls of their feet.  
"What are you waiting for?" They motioned for Gordon to follow them.

Gordon almost melted in relief, was Bubby always this easy to persuade? So Gordon followed the guy who wanted him dead just a few seconds away to the camera room...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> da sweet voice translation, (i used this sweet voice guide document 4 writing sweet voice): white 2 red means I’m tired but too scared to sleep
> 
> th document (https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1Y_TdePINatJlPvYI5kvA4ElPuqRgTwOiKXqckRxoM28/mobilebasic)
> 
> VB is my favourite of these guys ngl. definitely enjoyed writing him the best.


	11. let me out of this B O X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more exposition  
> not sure how much it matters tho
> 
> also- i got 1000 hits :D ommmggg tyy 
> 
> TW: Unsure if theres anything too bad this chapter :/ apologies if im wrong,, i mean a character eats something definitely not meant for consumption but i dont think thats too bad? /g

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so...... miss ronas back  
> at least no school.

The whole room was freezing cold, Benrey's hands felt numb after being pressed against it for so long. They cracked open their tired eyes and looked around. Benrey saw a green and blue figure standing on the other side of the room. His eyes were unfocused and his whole body ached. He watched the green figure slip out the room and the blue one turned their attention to Benrey. Fuck. 

Benrey's arms and legs felt like static as he tried to move. He shifted onto his knees and pushed himself up. He quickly wiped the blurriness from his eyes and zeroed in on the other figure. That figure was the spitting image of himself, but completely blue with soulless white eyes dripping with light. His code, his virus.

Adrenaline overtook him before Virus could get closer. Benrey got to his feet and bolted in the other direction. It felt like running inside a dream, knowing the danger requires you to move fast but having something drag you down, panic as your legs won't allow you to run as fast as you absolutely need to.

Benrey knew it was up when he tripped over his own feet. He fell to his knees and felt his heart drop. Benrey swung his head around to see Virus standing over him. They were saying something but it felt like Benrey had water in his ears. Virus started walking off but Benrey wasn't in the clear. Looking around, the room they were in was completely closed off, there were no windows or doors or anything. Benrey wasn't sure how he even got in. 

Out of the floor glass walls shot up and quickly enclosed Benrey.  
"Huh? What?" He shakily reached out to press a hand against the glass.  
"Caught you. Can't run away now." The other voice was slightly muffled but Benrey knew it was Virus's. Virus apparently decided Benrey wasn't their problem anymore because they were already at the other side of the room and booting something up on a computer. Benrey immediately started interrogating.

"Where are we?" No response.  
"What are you doing?" No response.  
"Can you let me out?" No response.  
"Where's Gordon?" No response.  
"Are you-"  
"Back off." Virus growled, they shot a murderous look back before returning attention to their current task.

Benrey tried to make out more of their surroundings. There were some computers scattered around along with security cameras, discarded papers, holes in the wall. There were a few cords lined up against the wall, they weren't plugged into anything. Weird. 

Virus let out a curse and stepped away from their computer. Upon inspection it seemed something was taking a while to load.   
"What are you doing?" Benrey completely forgot Virus wasn't a fan of questions in a matter of seconds.  
"Do you ever shut the fuck up." Virus groaned.  
"No."

Virus started pacing back and forth by the computer, flicking gaze from the floor to Benrey.  
"You don't have anything better to do, just answer my questions please?"  
"Fucking... Fine, fine. Whatever." Virus walked up to the glass cage Benrey was stuck in and kneeled in front of it.  
"Uh where are we?"  
"The computer room."  
"What are you trying to do?"  
"I'm preparing the cords for use."  
"What are you gonna use them for?"  
"...Not answering that."  
"Terrifying, thank you, also what's the deal with the others?"  
"Huh."

"Tommy? And? VT? They don't act anything alike, VT's a fucking maniac. And what's VB and VC's deal like what do they do?"  
"Honestly man I don't even know. I don't interact with these guys unless I have to."

"I don't know how much you're going to tell me here but what's the timeline of events here? Like how did you guys team up in such short time?"

"You wanna know? Guess it wouldn't hurt to tell. We all know each other from way before Black Mesa. We sort of just existed in the void. For the first week of being here in the Middle Ground I discovered this base and looked out for the other science teams and had made a bet that the first one to seperate would be leader. Then of course we Separated. I followed you for a bit but couldn't find any opening so I just stayed with the others. I obviously convinced them to follow my amazing plan on how to get out of here. After that I sent them to work while I cleared our base up. I got them to do some work for me and y'know what it was good until you showed up again and separated them. Honestly you're such a pain. After you ran off I set the other Viruses free and we did leave the bodies behind. Then VT went all high and mighty and took all four of you. Now we're here. Anymore questions?"

"That did kind of explain it all."  
"Of course it did. Now shut the hell up."  
"I don't want to shut up. I don't got anything else to do."  
"I cannot believe we were ever considered the same person."  
Benrey decided to not reply but to instead spit at them.  
"Fuck you I hate you."  
"Eat shit."

Benrey watched a portion of the wall next to him open up to reveal VT standing there. VT spared a glance at Benrey and then over to Virus.  
"Well. It seems this worked."  
"It did. But your fucking cords take five hours to fucking charge are you kidding?"  
"Perfection takes time."  
"Your standards of perfection are concerning."  
"Whatever. Kind of pathetic how you've only got one vessel ready."  
"Asshole he's the test run. Once this charges and it works I'll get the other three."  
"What about Gordon?"  
"...He will not be an issue."

VT stared at Benrey.   
"This is no fun right now honestly. So boring. Don't worry though I'll fix that." VT basically floated out of the room and the wall patched up behind him.  
"Well that was fucking ominous." Virus mumbled.  
"Let me out now please?"   
"No."  
"I said please."  
"I'll break all of your bones."  
"All of them??"  
"All of them."

Benrey hit his hand against the glass.  
"Don't even bother I sampled Bubby's tube to make this shit."  
"Why would you do that?"  
"Stop asking questions."  
"What do you want me to do? Just sit in here and do nothing?"  
"Yes! That is exactly what I would need you to do."  
">:(."  
"How did you just say that verbally."

...

VB snatched up the key and examined it closely.  
"Yes.. Yes! Coomer clone time babey!" VB smirked, they ran over to the vent cover, probably off to meet up with VC.   
"Hey, dude. My key?"  
"Ugh fine." VB flicked a silver key over to Gordon and then slipped into the vent.

Gordon held the key in his hand tightly. If he lost it he would be pretty fucked. He walked over to the door before remembering where he was, the camera room. He walked back over to the monitors and looked through them, he tried to find any trace of Benrey, he just hoped they got away before anything bad happened. He flicked through the monitors until he saw a fuzzy image of Benrey and Virus sitting in the same room, Benrey was trapped yet again.

"Another rescue mission.. I'll have to go get them after I get the science team." Gordon walked out the room and started down the path to the room he assumed the team was in. Once in the open space he saw VT standing there, only standing there. He didn't seem to be threatening at that moment so Gordon elected to ignore them. 

He walked over and put the key in the lock and turned it. He felt VT watch him do it. A smile spread across that dumbass viruses face when an alarm went off the second Gordon pushed on the door.  
"Oops." VT snickered to himself and wandered off. Gordon quickly retracted the key from the lock and stepped back. A trap? Gordon froze out of panic, much like a deer caught in headlights.

There was a slurping noise out of the corner of his eye he saw another virus.

...

"Fuck." Virus stared at the alarm next to them that was blaring, they pulled out the mini monitor they keep in their pocket at all times and flicked it over to the cams protecting the other 3 vessels. "Gordon once again." Virus grumbled. They stuffed the monitor back in their pocket and grabbed their camera.

"At least he's on his own right now."  
"Where you going?" Oh yeah, _that_ annoyance. Virus didn't give him the privilege of an answer before sliding down into the vents. Once inside they regained most of their form and crawled through. They heard the clambering of Gordon and the blaring of the alarm, why did they program it so fucking loud? They slid through the vents with their camera and mini monitor and sat atop of the vent cover. 

Gordon stared wide eyed at them. Virus wasted no time for first impressions. They snapped a photo of them and examined the taken photo expectantly. The photo of Gordon only served as proof... Whatever. It seemed Gordon was very insistent in saving his friends. That was an issue. 

They _thought_ VB would keep Gordon occupied until their plan was over but apparently that was too hard for someone like him. If Virus could they would roll their eyes. Virus decided the only way to contain him was to corner him and pull out their trump card. Virus decided to use Gordon's ignorance of Viruses nature against him. For all Gordon knew, Virus was an all powerful god that could kill him with their mind. Virus was none of those things but he didn't know that.

They stood up and began to herd Gordon away from his target. Gordon wielded his gun and pointed it at Virus.  
"Take one more step and I shoot!" His voice shook as he spoke. Virus needn't not reply, merely ready their form to let bullets slide straight through them, and that it did.

As Gordon reloaded his gun Virus threw a warning shot. Virus could manipulate and shoot thick blue wires out of the ground or walls. Creating them took a lot out them and they would normally 'charge themself' before hand (aka literally eating batteries) but they hadn't prior. These wires wouldn't last very long right now.

They way Gordon screeched in fear when he saw the wire told Virus all they needed to know. Gordon had no clue what they were and what they did. The element of surprise working in their favour once more. Virus needed to use the wires to lock Gordon in place for a while so they needed a quick charge. The first wire had already dissipated. Virus broke open their camera and ripped the batteries out. They swallowed them quickly and felt power surge through them. 

Virus had Gordon cornered right where they needed him. Wires shot out of the wall and into the next, successfully locking Gordon down the dip in the wall. Virus could tell he was hesitant to touch the wires.  
"Don't want to lose your hand Gordon." Virus threatened, eyeing the wires. Gordon visibly gulped.

Now that was over with Virus was free to slip back through the vents and torment their vessel again. As they stepped back they saw VT simply staring at them with what was either curiosity or distaste, hard to tell with him.  
"What are you staring at?" Virus hissed.  
"Hadn't seen the wires in a while." VT sighed.  
"Didn't need to use them." Virus shrugged.  
"I'll keep guard of the vessels."  
"Don't kill them."  
"..."  
"I swear to whatever god you believe in I while kill you if you even touch them."  
"A bit violent there, maybe tune it down." VT growled and walked off.

Whatever, Virus slipped back to the computer room.

...

Holy shit they did it. The palms of their hands were bleeding out but they had done it. Benrey stepped out of the broken hole in their glass cage and slowly regained themself. They had broken it open with their fists and was free. Finally. Hopefully this was the last time he would be captured. The shuffling noise coming from the vents alerted Benrey that now would be a fantastic time to _run_. 

Despite their legs feeling like literal jelly they managed to get the odd wall door to open and booked it down the dark hallway. Benrey could hear the growl of anger coming from Virus in the room. It was kind of muffled which Benrey took as a sign he was getting far enough away. That was of course, until Benrey heard the footsteps of Virus following him.

It was then with a start that Benrey realised they were leading Virus right to him, the blood on his hands hitting the ground and creating a trail. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He clasped his hands together to try and cease as much of the bleeding as he could. 

He still had a headstart however. Spying a closet door Benrey waisted no time in diving inside. He slammed the door closed, there was a chair resting by the door. Benrey grabbed it and hooked it under the doorknob. As soon as he took a step back there was a thud, and then another, and another.. All coming from outside the door. 

Virus was just outside the door and knocking furiously. Benrey looked around with a panicked gaze until his eyes landed on a crowbar in the corner. Bingo. He picked it up and rested it on his shoulder, he took a breather in the corner before readying himself to run. Soon enough the door came crashing down and Virus was standing there, shattered shards of wood sprayed everywhere.

Benrey leaned back before running forward again, the second Virus got close they slashed out with their crowbar. Apparently Virus hadn't expected that and their form was completely solid, they went tumbling back and Benrey kept on running.

...

Oh that _motherfucker_. How fucking dare he have the entitlement to not only escape _and_ land a hit on a god such as themself. What a prick. Nevermind him. Virus just had a tasty snack of AA batteries and wires have more then one use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe if you capture someone you should keep a close eye on them huh
> 
> if theres any mistakes thats my bad i spent like an hour editing this because i kept getting distracted and im tired :p


	12. the girls are fighhhtiiinggg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i... genuinely forgot that this happened this chapter. i thought it was later on. i am............ so sorry.
> 
> this is virus fucked up and EVIL moments fr
> 
> TW: A character eats something inedible (batteries), fighting, emetophobia warning, body horror, impalement, just likee this chapter hurt to read over so b careful :(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry

"They don't hurt by the way." VT trailed out of the room without another word. Gordon raised an eyebrow and stared back at the blue poles. He hesitantly reached a hand out and tapped the pole. No burning fire, no pain, no nothing really. Of course he should of expected a load of bullshittery from any form of Benrey. But before he could even think of attempting to squeeze through the wires they shot back into the ground, leaving with sparks of electricity and holes in the walls. 

Gordon hesitantly stepped out of the area he had been cornered in. He breathed out with relief. He brandished his gun and started walking, he was going to shoot Virus in the head if it was the last thing he did. But what was next? There was an alarm keeping him from the science team and he didn't know where the fuck Benrey was. He was on his own again.

Ok, first things first. Deactivate the alarm, wherever that was. He snuck over to the door and looked around for anything resembling an alarm. There was a security camera there that Gordon had no hesitation shooting down. The less Virus could see, the less they could control. Whatever, it seemed the alarm was activated by the key being put in the door. Maybe if Gordon could take down the electricity in that specific area the alarm would be deactivated. What a great idea.

There must be a room around here that could pull that off.

* * *

Virus made their way back into the computer room. They may have slid off, tail between their legs, but that didn't mean they had given up just about yet. They checked the countdown for when the cords were charged to see that there was still 4 hours left. Not an issue. Virus spawned a wire straight out of the floor and right into the wiring of the charger. Electricity zapped through the charger and the cords itself. 

Ah yes, that time wouldn't even just be halved it would be an almost instant charge from the burst of power it was just given. Virus changed their attention to their desk, they ripped the desk drawer open and admired their delectable collection of batteries. Dinner time. 

Virus grabbed a fist full of batteries and swallowed them. The feeling of power surge through them and into their veins, or what their equivalent of veins were, was truly worth everything over the stinging feeling in their mouth. 

Oh? Of course, the tracker they still had on Benrey. They could just sense wherever he moved. They didn't even need their monitors. Benrey could run, but he couldn't hide. They retracted the wires they had already summoned and decided it was time to teach that vessel to not mess with a self-declared _god_.

They stepped on top of the vent cover and slipped straight through. Virus regained themself once inside and started to crawl towards the burst of energy they sensed to be their vessel. By the time they had crawled to the other side of the vent system they could literally hear Benrey walking above them. Bingo.

Virus peered out of the vent cover they ended up at. Benrey was standing there, still brandishing his crowbar. Benrey seemed willfully ignorant of the vent cover that wasn't even covered by a shadow. He looked around the room for a second before leaning against the wall, he seemed tired. How perfect then, that the door for the room slammed shut just as Benrey let himself relax. How perfect that it was now Virus chose to crawl out of the vents. How perfect that Benrey was preoccupied with the door to notice Virus creeping. How perfect was it that the door was stuck and wouldn't open. How perfect that Benrey pulled and pushed the doorknob and it wouldn't budge. 

How horribly perfect that Virus was slowly ascending upon their target...

Benrey noticed Virus a second too late, a singular wire shot out the wall at him that sent him reeling.  
"Fuck!" He spat out, stumbling back and away. It was clear to Virus that they stunned Benrey by how he was waving his crowbar in a pathetic attempt to preserve himself.

Virus shot out two more, keeping their distance from Benrey's crowbar. Virus shouldn't of overused their body melting technique because they were left with barely enough power to become jelly. Their whole body would melt permanently if they attempted, try again in 2 hours wrong password type shit. 

Virus needed to just keep away from Benrey's hit zone and incapacitate him with their own attacks. Knocking him out would be ideal but getting him down was the minimum. They had the upperhand, they had long-distance attacks and Benrey was limping from injuries on his legs. This would be a walk in the fucking park. 

They launched three wires out of the ground, surrounding Benrey. He slashed at them with his crowbar and successfully knocked one down. There was a horrible spark of hope in his eyes when he realised he could counter the wires. Virus reeled in anger, shooting a wire straight down at his head. Benrey acted fast, holding the crowbar horizontally above their head and stopping the wire from hitting him. Virus focused harder on having the wire slam down and crush his pathetic weapon. He took steps back and once he was out of the way he removed the crowbar from position and the wire came slamming into the ground and missing him by a mile. 

Virus balled their fists up, they were practically shaking with pure fucking rage. They couldn't land a single hit, this was a disappointing outcome so far. Benrey was on low HP, one hit and that motherfucker is out. So why? Why is it so fucking hard?? Virus shot out 5 wires, one hit. The wire struck his arm and he stumbled over and fell onto his knees. He pushed himself up onto his feet with his crowbar but Virus sent a wire out and struck the weapon away. Got you. 

Benrey didn't even falter, he gravitated towards the crowbar and grabbed it firmly with bleeding hands. He paused, he stared straight into Virus's eyes. He looked down and noted the distance Virus had kept between them and _realised_ something. With this newfound epiphany he rushed straight at Virus, crowbar going swinging and catching them off guard. Virus didn't plan for this, didn't plan for Benrey to get back up, didn't plan for him to run _straight at them_. Virus was hit straight across the face with the crowbar. They shot wires out the ground in surprise, two knocking Benrey back. 

How fucking dare. How fucking dare the vessel mess with them. Didn't know the vessel could thank Virus for everything he had? The vessel was ungrateful, Virus deserved that stable body more then he did. And Virus would never let that go, they didn't care how far they had to go. They didn't care if they had to sacrifice their own life they would get what they so rightfully fucking deserved. They clenched fists, staring at the dazed vessel. He slowly rose again and oh how that made Virus's body twist in anger. Hot rage seeping through them. Their breathing was heavy just seeing the vessel. 

Virus's attacks were no longer controlled, they shot wires out of no-where. The wires would pop out of the ground too fast to comprehend in a show of electricity and sparks. The vessel was stumbling in confusion. A pathetic display that made Virus seethe. Why even have a body if you're not going to use it right? Might as well take advantage of their pitiable condition. They shot one last wire out straight into his chest. That shoved him right into the wall. He cried out in pain and then the wire faltered and slunk away.

Virus felt a stinging coolness wash over them, calming down now that the vessel was right where they needed him. Then it hit them that in their panicked and angry state they had used all their juice up. There was barely any power left in them to create two more wires. However, looking back at the dazed vessel, that should not be an issue...

* * *

Benrey slumped against the wall, his whole body was aching from desperately trying to dodge Virus's onslaught of attacks. One wire slammed into him and shoved him against the wall and now his limbs felt like static once more, he was getting well acquainted with that feeling. He couldn't move. He would be panicking if reality would set in. Right now he was staring blankly at Virus who seemed to be weighing their options. Then their face dramatically dropped.

"Aw man, why are we fighting." Virus mumbled, regret thick in their voice but not all too convincing, "Ever since we met we fought for control and for what? I think that we could give things one last try!"  
"Huh." Benrey murmured, mouth too dry to speak properly.  
"You know, let's stop fighting." Virus walked up to Benrey's body, "You look a little stuck there, surely I don't hit that hard." Oh yeah right. Virus got down on one knee and stared Benrey right in the face.  
"I'll make it up to you, here, let me help you up." Virus reached out a hand.

Was this truly happening? Such a quick change of morals in the blink of an eye.. He had seen that before with VT and- Well? What else was Benrey meant to do? Virus was staring at him with almost earnest empathy. He didn't have a choice here, he had to give Virus the benefit of the doubt. He waited a moment, Virus's face started to drop, bad, bad, bad.

Noticing his hesitation Virus spoke up,   
"Don't you trust me...?" Their eyes narrowed, not a good sign. This was your only option, man! Hurry it up! Take what you're given.  
Benrey reached their right hand out about to grab onto the other's.

But, before Benrey could grab onto Virus's hand, Virus pulled away.  
"Aw man... You were too slow," Virus winked, and with a flick of the hand Virus summoned a wire up...

And straight through Benrey's arm.

For a moment, the world had paused. Benrey watched it in slow motion, the wire breaking through the ground and then ripping right through his forearm. He was frozen in place, blood draining from his face and his jaw hanging open. Then reality started setting in, pain was searing through his whole arm and his body started to shake. Tears formed in his eyes. And before he realised it he was full on sobbing.

There was a spot of silence before either of them spoke up.  
"You know.." There was another pause as Benrey started _coughing up blood_ "When we first met, I liked you dude.. Thought you were soo cool and you knew what to do an shit. So wh-why the fuck do you do this shit man.. What's it with you and arms? Why you so mad and violent that's mean.. You're mean and I hate you now... You _promised_. Like last time. You promised nothing would happen. 'It won't hurt him' you LIED. YOU SAID-"

Virus kicked Benrey in the chest and Benrey proceeded to cough more blood up.  
"What was that for? I'm down, I'm fucking done. You won asshole." Benrey reached their left hand up to wipe the blood that was drooling down away.   
"Just for good measure." Virus answered, "Just be grateful I still need you for your vessel, otherwise I would've gone for the head." Benrey shivered.  
"Can you like.. Take the thing away. Hurt."  
"Don't you know to not remove objects from wounds? Idiot? You'll all go and bleed out and then you'll be proper dead." Virus waved their hand dismissively "Also, wouldn't want you up and running away now."   
"Where the fuck would I run? I-"  
Virus readied his foot to send another kick and Benrey cut himself off.

"I need to retrieve the cord to finish this shit off. BRB." And with that Virus slithered off, Benrey's eyes were overcome with static and tears so they didn't see them leave. The world was fucking spinning, he refused to look up from the floor because he didn't want to know what he would see. He needed to get the fuck out of here, but there was no escape with Virus's fucking wire still in his arm. The other wires had zapped away, he had caused one to be knocked down by pure force alone.. Perhaps if he attacked this wire enough it would shrink into the ground too...

So Benrey swallowed his fear and looked up at the gruesome display. He winced before punching and kicking weakly at it. He was desperate, man. Benrey shifted closer and with no hesitation he scratched at it and with a resounding kick sent it sliding back into the ground. It left a nice clean hole right in the middle of Benrey's forearm. He averted his eyes from it and quickly shoved himself to his feet.

His legs were wobbly and god he couldn't breathe right, he grabbed the crowbar with his good hand and slammed it straight into the jammed door. And with a spark of relief the door swung open on impact. Benrey fucking bolted, he kept running as fast as he could manage but god he was lagging. He swallowed the bile in his throat and just kept fucking running. Adrenaline pumping through his body he briefly forgot the sharp pain ripping through him. But he didn't ignore the tears sliding down his cheeks and onto the floor. 

He felt like he was dying and by god dying would be merciful at this point. Benrey dropped to the ground, adrenaline wearing off and searing pain all throughout him. He could barely fucking breathe, it felt like he was drained of all air and not a single inhale helped. He leaned against a hallway wall and dropped the crowbar at his feet and just curled into himself. He placed a hand over his mouth so that if Virus returned they wouldn't hear his sobbing from a few meters away. But he couldn't stop a stream of black and white sweet voice. His whole body was weighed down, he wasn't bothered swatting it away and out of sight.

* * *

Gordon was well and truly _fucking lost_ , he had been wandering the labyrinth that was the viruses base but almost had a run in with VC, he quickly changed directions and found himself in unexplored territory. He moved to rest his hand on the handle of his gun and had his other hand wrapped tightly over the key. He was almost about to go back the way he came to see if VC had left the area when he heard crying.

He paused, was this another trap? He cautiously approached the source of the noise, the sobbing was slightly muffled but there was another low pitched noise that Gordon immediately registered as sweet voice. Gordon pulled his gun out just in case it was Virus trying to pull Gordon into a trap but the sweet voice sounded undeniably distressed. He almost dropped his gun when he saw it was in fact Benrey who was the source of the noise.

He placed the weapon back in his pocket and started to slowly approach the other, they were letting out blobs of sweet voice that had what looked to be the consistency of especially thick slime. It was dripping onto the floor but that wasn't the only liquid on the floor, there was a concerning amount of _fresh blood_ pooling around Benrey. Gordon swallowed back the panic in his throat.

"B-Benrey?" Gordon started. Benrey shot up in fear, relaxing only slightly when he zeroed in on Gordon standing by him, "Hey buddy? You OK?" Benrey didn't reply, he just sniffled out more tears. He spat out a few chords of dark red and cyan sweet voice and then curled back into himself. Benrey had placed his good hand protectively over the hole in his arm but Gordon could see the blood seeping out.  
"You're hurt, right? Ok, you don't seem to be talking but that's ok I'll wait." Gordon crouched down by Benrey who was trying to become as small as possible.

After a bit of silence Benrey spoke up.  
"Virus.." He whispered, his voice was hoarse and dry but it worked.  
"Of course, they just don't play fair do they?"  
"No..."  
"Are you OK?" Gordon repeated the question.  
"Hurt."  
"Like a lot or just minimal?"  
"Lot."  
"Yikes, well I don't think we have anymore bandages so show me how bad the damage is." To be honest, apart from his arm, Benrey only had some scrapes from the wires. But his arm had been fucking impaled. Benrey hesitantly moved his left hand away to showcase the worst part. Gordon reeled.

"Yeah that's bad."  
"Tricked me."  
"What an asshole."

Gordon sat down next to Benrey who had moved his hand back in spot. Benrey cleared his throat and started talking again, his voice felt stronger now.

"Y'know it's funny, real hilarious, because back in good old Black Mesa no one retained any injuries. Like your arm is all cool and grown back now. Because Black mesa wasn't real yeah?" Gordon stared at his right arm.  
"I'm grateful for that at least." Was all he said.

"Yeah well, in black mesa the codes took all of the pain, that m-might not of been for you depending on how involved your code chose to be but I didn't feel a thing back there, you could tear me limb from limb and I wouldn't even care. And I just assumed that it simply wasn't real, I h-had no clue why you were so upset about the arm cuz I just assumed you couldn't feel it either- Not the case I get that now but.." Benrey started rambling, rocking back and forth in place, they grabbed at their helmet and started scratching at it. "The thing is I've never felt pain before."

Gordon paused.  
"I hate it. I hate all of this. I feel everything and I don't want to anymore I'm so tired."  
"I get it. I understand." Gordon sighed, "When my arm was cut off I was just so ready to give up... and I'm guessing at the hotel you didn't expect anything to really happen."  
"...Yeah. It wasn't a nice surprise."

Gordon stood up to move in front of the other, they stared at him with wide eyes.  
"Here, let me help you up." He crouched down and reached a hand out, he didn't expect Benrey to visibly flinch back, grabbing his arm tighter.  
"OK, bad, no doing that." Gordon pulled his arm back quickly and stood up. Benrey was no longer making eye contact and staring at the floor, his pupils had shrunk in fear.

He would have to find an alternative way of getting them back up because god knows they can't stay in one spot for long and Virus could still possibly be nearby. Instead of just pulling them up by the arm Gordon simply reached over and wrapped his arms around Benrey's shoulders and hauled them back up.

"Oh huh."  
"That work?"  
"Yeah that's better." Gordon realised he was still holding onto to Benrey and quickly let go, he stumbled back into the wall but sort of regained himself after a few seconds.  
"We have to go before Virus finds us." Gordon informs.   
"More walking? Super cringe dude." Benrey winced. Without asking Benrey held onto Gordon's hand "I'll only go if you hold my hand."  
"Yeah OK I can manage that." Benrey's hand is cold, there's not much blood circulating to his limbs currently. 

With Gordon and Benrey's hands linked the two started to move away, yet again Gordon had to slow his walking to allow Benrey to keep up. Gordon was facing straight ahead as they were walking, trying not to look in Benrey's direction as seeing his arm brought back... Uncomfortable memories... But he did notice the purple and dark green sweet voice. Gordon just wished he knew what it translated to, or that Tommy was here to decipher it.

Gordon decided that their next priority was disabling the alarm for the door, so of course he would now have to drag Benrey along for that as well.  
"We going anywhere?" Benrey mumbled. He didn't really care if he was going to be honest, just needed a bit of conversation to remind him Gordon was really there.  
"Yeah I'm trying to find the source of electricity in this shit-hole."  
"Uh why?"  
"Door where our friends are is protected by an alarm I'm gonna cut the power to it."  
"What if it cuts all the power and it's all dark?"  
"...Let's just hope that doesn't happen." 

Benrey would've continued asking mindless questions if they didn't retch up more blood. At this point now his clothes were caked with blood from numerous injuries. Gordon immediately stopped to see what the noise was and his eyes widened at the blood drooling down his face.  
"That's not good." Was all Gordon could muster. Benrey's eyes were completely unfocused, he just stared off almost as if he was unaware of what just happened. Gordon took that as a sign he wasn't about to cough up more so he used the back of his sleeve to wipe the residue of it away.

If this place had a medical ward that would be really fucking helpful given Benrey looked one hit away from straight up dying. And despite everything he would really rather that not happen. Especially since that would end with him being by himself and he would _also_ rather that not happen.

"Oh dip look at that bro," Benrey commented out of nowhere, he flicked his head in the direction of an open door leading into a room "We should uh check it out or somethin.."  
"Good idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK SO LONG 2 EDIT CUZ IT WAS SO PAINFUL 2 READ UUUAAAUUAHH IM NOT READING IT OVER AGAIN IM JUST GONNA HIT POST AND CRY ;"(
> 
> but... im sure it gets better from here............. right?
> 
> A KNEE WAY  
> DA SWEET VOICEZ:  
> Black to white- Im scared and tired  
> Dark red to cyan- I’m in pain and I need help  
> Purple to dark green- I trust you


	13. dinner is not over!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im- 100 kudos?? thank you so much :)  
> really didn't expect people to read this let alone actually like it- but ty u ppl r very nice :')  
> ahemm a knee ways 
> 
> virus gets mad >:( this is now everyones problem
> 
> TW: Implied suicide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone here is missing. hm.

Gordon stepped into the room with Benrey sticking close behind, Benrey's hand was wrapped tight against Gordon's. Gordon used his non-taken hand to flick the light switch on inside. The room itself was rather small but not at all minimalistic. There was another computer inside but luckily not a security camera in sight. There was also a printer with a pile of photos on top of it along with some documents. There was ink sprayed all over it, Gordon wondered if the viruses knew how printers worked. 

"Yoo photos and shit." Benrey briefly let go of Gordon's hand to limp over to the upturned photos and investigate them. Gordon quickly wiped the grime on his gloved hand off onto his hoodie. Whatever, while Benrey was doing whatever the fuck he wanted Gordon would look for anything that could help with his plan. There was a computer and it was logged in and on, that was unsettling given the context of where they were but Gordon wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He clicked onto the computer and with a few seconds of fucking around he pulled up a map of the whole base, it was clear someone had gone over the map renaming shit, by the handwriting it was probably Bubby, or VB he should say. Like, one of the rooms was called 'Shit stupid idiot room', what the fuck does that even mean. 

Benrey on the other hand had discovered some information with the photos, they initially discovered 3 photos. Each one was of a different member of the science team, Bubby, Coomer, and Tommy, except they had a coloured glow around them. It was the same colour of their virus too which was odd. But those photos were covered by a thin layer of dust that Benrey had wiped off with the least bloodied part of his sleeve, inspecting further there was another photo but there wasn't any dust. It was a photo of Gordon and by the looks of it, it was taken recently. There was no glow around Gordon. It probably doesn't mean anything.

But there was one other photo, and by god this was a good one. For the first time in a good fucking while Benrey started giggling, he thought he had lost this. Clearly Virus must of made off with this priceless fucking artifact.   
"H-hey Gordon,," Benrey's voice continued to waver every time he spoke, that would hopefully pass soon enough.  
"Huh? You good?" Gordon turned from where he was standing by the computer to look straight at the other.  
"Check th-this shit out." He started waving the photo at him teasingly.  
"Is that- Is that the pictures of my _feet_ -" Gordon did a whole double take.  
"Yup! And I got them back, you can't have them they're mine!" Gordon felt hot with embarrassment.

He walked over to where Benrey was standing and tried to snatch it, Benrey held it over his head.  
"No stealing Gordon! That's rude."  
"Give that back, I'm going to burn that shit."  
"Noooo! Not the feet pics man." Benrey waved the photo above Gordon's head, unfortunately for Benrey, Gordon was a few inches taller and managed to grab the photo and pull it from their hands.

"Bro! Mean! Those were mine." Benrey crossed his arms and looked away.  
"I am not giving you back photos of my feet that would be weird."  
"No it wouldn't shut up." Then his eyes lit up with a horribly mischievous plan, faster then Gordon could process he grabbed the photo back from Gordon's hands and shoved it into his mouth and _swallowed it_.  
"What the fuck." Gordon stared at him.  
"If I can't have the photo no-one can." Benrey said as if it were common sense.  
"I don't know how to process this goodbye." 

Gordon shook off the immense confusion that was washing over him to return to the computer. Benrey shrugged it off, he just couldn't comprehend Benrey's inherit genius. Sad miserable humans smh my head....

With a few more swift movements Gordon had access to the lights of the base. That was quick. Hesitantly he clicked to the lights in the room off as a test which earned a yelp of surprise from Benrey.  
"Yo who turned off the lights?" There was a waver of worry in his voice, perhaps he thought one of the viruses were behind it.  
"That was just me sorry." Gordon clicked them back on.

Now he had control over the lights there must be a way to control the electricity as well. There was no harm in trying. While he was slamming the keyboard in an honest attempt to save his friends from asshole versions of themselves Benrey shoved the other photos off the top of the printer and threw it open. There were a few pieces of paper inside, just what he needed. He grabbed a piece and folded it in half, he luckily still had his pen in his pocket and started to draw on it along with a genuine attempt at writing. 

"Aha!" Gordon cried out as he managed to hack into electricity. With that Benrey shoved his paper creation into his jacket pocket.   
"What's good?" Benrey snuck towards him and peered over his shoulder.  
"I got in, with this we should be able to take down the electricity for that room."  
"Yoo nice." 

Gordon hit a button and there was a whirring noise.  
"OK we gotta fucking run now." He said.  
"Whuh- Are they coming?"  
"Well if they find us they sure as hell won't be happy!" Gordon grabbed onto Benrey's good arm and ushered him out the room, "Come on, we only have to get the others out and safe and everything should hopefully be better." He reassured noticing how slow Benrey was getting.  
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Just tired."  
"I get that, I would be exhausted too, I am _exhausted_ , but we have to keep going."

If Benrey was honest, he wasn't just tired, they felt like they were about to fucking collapse. But this was, of all places, the worst place to do so. But nevertheless he grabbed onto Gordon's hand and let himself be dragged away. 

...

Holy fucking shit. They couldn't leave for one goddam second huh? Not one moment of peace for ol' Virus? Staring at the horrifically empty room Virus felt rage wash right over them, in fact it felt like their head was underwater. How were they meant to complete their plan if the vessel kept getting away!? Maybe this was all just some sick fucking joke on them, that must be it. And you know what? That was fucking it, no more games, no more asking for _their_ help, and no more lack of supervision. 

They would take Benrey and Gordon down if it were the last fucking thing they did. And boy were they raring to go, know they knew that Gordon hadn't the faintest clue what they were capable of they now had the upperhand. Along with the fact the vessel probably cried to Gordon about his weak-ass arm; Wimp. Gordon probably thought Virus was much more powerful and totally not at all afraid of him at all.

Being afraid of Gordon wasn't something Virus was willing to admit. But they had good reason, Gordon was a cold blooded killer. To be expected of a man with no ID. The photos all lined up, Gordon had killed him and by god he was going to pay. But, if Gordon had the power to kill someone like him then killing Virus would be just as easy to him. This would be difficult, but they were always good at acting. Hell, they acted like they cared about anything the other viruses did all the time. They were also good at acting like they weren't 0.2 seconds away from losing their goddamn mind.

No time for thinking Virus, the cords are all ready and charged because of your wires. What a genius you truly are Virus! Now time to put your plan in action. Plans, plans, plans. Every plan made was rapid fire thinking and for the most part they were pathetic on both ends. Everyone would get away just as soon as a plan was about to work. Virus sighed out, that was all a matter of the past. What mattered now was that they were closer to winning then the vessel and Gordon would like. Their hands curled into fists, megalomaniac feelings surging. Wait shit, they needed more batteries. Well, they could always take a quick pit stop before initiating.

Using the vents was overrated, Virus walked into the next room over and bashed the nearest battery-dependent electronic they could find in and feasted on the acidic cylinders inside. How delicious was the stinging feeling clinging to their throat and the feeling of being recharged far more then sleep could ever manage. That tracker was still placed on the vessel, it was a faint beeping, a small outline, the closer the two were the more defined it became. Right now it was at a medium blur, they hadn't run that far yet. So, similarly to a predator stalking their prey, Virus followed suit.

Maybe they could lure the two back to the computer room, oh that would be fun. But so impossible, the vessel had been there already there was no way they would return on purpose. Well, where were they headed now? Ah, back to their friends Virus concluded from where the tracker was heading.

They were very fucking insistent on freeing those three, for what? They were just extra dead weight, honestly. As if Gordon didn't have enough of that with having to deal with the vessel. However, Virus continued to have the upperhand on the two. Virus knew this junkyard better then they knew themself. Watching cameras of the place everyday really carves that kind of shit straight into your brain. If Virus could just twist their path and lead them _back_ to the computer room then that would be more then splendid.

So of course Virus started to follow behind them, the light tracker on the vessel only getting brighter. Their hands flexed with anticipation. Maybe they could block off the path to their friends, that was a good idea. So Virus slipped on ahead, taking a shortcut. With a few loose wires Virus caused a cave-in that blocked the way to the open space. Mwahaha, just another step towards victory!

Oh, what was this? The sounds of chatter behind them? Time to flee, and by that they did mean time to melt into a puddle and hide in the corner. They delighted in the way the vessel and Gordon looked at the rocky wall in confusion. They said something about taking a different path and walked away. Yes, yes, another way and straight into their trap!

Virus reveled in the way the two wandered the corridors, imagine not knowing where to go? Couldn't be them. The fact they had to share a body with such a scatterbrain was honestly an insult. A slap in the face. Maybe even a punishment. Whatever, following them was almost just as entertaining as entertaining as watching them on the monitors. But now that they could eavesdrop in on the conversation it was even better. 

They didn't exactly talk about anything too interesting but it was interesting to observe. But it was getting more then tiring to keep summoning wires to block them off, they tried to do it as discreetly as possible to avoid suspicion but they both looked on edge. Each time the ceiling came crumbling down they would both shoot each other a distrustful look, maybe they were thinking the other did it. Oh how hilarious it would be to watch them accuse the other and tear themselves apart. Maybe a less desirable and unlikely outcome but entertaining nevertheless! 

So, as a blue puddle, Virus slid along the ground just out of eyesight of the other two. They watched and waited carefully, practically buzzing with joy when they saw the two vessels walk right down the correct path. Virus realised with a start that the vessel was completely out for the count when being taken to the computer room, they didn't know what the path to it looked like. They would have no reason to avoid it. If their mouth was visible it would curl into a menacing smirk. Everything was fitting together, piece by piece.

...

Gordon tried to not let it seem like the consistently appearing caved in walls was getting to him, making his blood run cold. One time he saw a flash of blue and the corridor fell in, he looked around but didn't see the culprit. But that bright flash of blue could only be one thing, Virus's wires. Every time he went to step down a hallway he would hesitate and wait to see it fall in on itself. When he was in the clear he would let Benrey and himself procced.

"I think they're near." Benrey whispered.  
"I think they're following us." Gordon agreed.  
"We should be careful." Benrey tightened grip on Gordon's hand and swallowed thickly. These cave-ins were as good a sign as throwing up blood was. 

Benrey was still feeling weak, just a little more, only a little further. He was only still awake because of the crushing fear of if he fell asleep he would not wake back up. He kept walking despite feeling like he was waterlogged, the next time some fucked up shit happened to him here he would have to be carried out of it or not at all. 

At least Gordon was relatively ok if not emotionally distraught. Benrey had tried to keep Gordon out of as much danger as possible, half of the reason for it was to make up for the shit _they_ forced him to do in black mesa but the other half was the fear that they would cut his arm off again or something similarly fucked up. He couldn't have that happen again, so what if his arm had been impaled and he felt blood rising in his throat. He was good now, this was what good guys did. 

Bluh, what was that noise? Another corridor caving in, it was all too fast for his half-lidded eyes to process. All he could understand was Gordon was afraid of it therefore it was bad. They were heading to,, yeah heading to their friends. This didn't look like the right way, Gordon said it was the long way. That's inconvenient.

They made their way to a fork in the hallways, three doors, two immediately were caved in. Fuck. There was one way out now. Gordon instinctively grabbed tighter onto Benrey's hand. Benrey stared lazily up at him.  
"Hey buddy? All good?" They murmured up at him, swaying their hands lightly.  
"I don't trust this."  
"S'all good, we're still together so like,, can't be that bad?"  
"I wish that were the case."  
"Don't worry man I'll protect you if anything goes wrong."

Gordon looked over Benrey's battered form, he barely even looked like he was able to stand let along hold up the crowbar he was clutching.  
"Definitely," Gordon let himself pretend to be reassured by Benrey's promise.  
"Yeah I'm so good at protecting you. Will never happen again now." Benrey mumbled, definitely 2 seconds away from passing the fuck out, speech slurred and sounding almost delirious.  
"What will never happen again?"  
"Th-the arm.. If I protect you there's no chance of it happening again.. And see it's right there, right where it's meant to be!" He said, blood drooling out his mouth.

Oh, was that it?  
"And I'm repaying my debt you know. If you weren't there at the.... Hotel? Hotel yeah, I would be super dead LOL." Benrey waved his good arm around for emphasis. That must have been what Virus wanted, why they said to do it.  
"What do you mean.."  
"Well, do you think I expected a virus infected science team member to help me haha?" Benrey continued, his tone somehow cheery despite what he was saying "To be honest, I wasn't expecting to need help at all in the aftermath of it." That sentence had two meanings, Gordon didn't really want to know which one was the right one.

Benrey had stopped moving completely, he stopped talking or even visibly breathing for that matter.  
"Hey, hey, dude." Gordon turned around and held the other by the shoulders and stared right into his blank eyes, Benrey tried his best to match the eye contact but quickly dropped his gaze. He never liked eye contact very much.

"Listen, when this is all other we can talk about what happened, but right now I need you to just stay with me, OK?" Gordon shook Benrey slightly when it seemed they had become unresponsive.  
"Huh, oh yeah. Yeah, just gotta stay awake huh? I'll try bro." Did they even remember what they had just admitted. Gordon decided that wasn't on his list of priorities right now. Right now he had to guide Benrey and himself through the only remaining door. 

Benrey's walking got even slower, if that was even fucking possible. Gordon tried not to be irritated at that, he knew as well as anyone what it was like to be vulnerable and bleeding out. And just as he predicted, the very second they walked inside the door slammed behind them.  
"What was that noise?" Benrey mused, it seemed the door had been covered by a second door which consisted of bricks, then Benrey looked around the dim room and his blood ran cold.

"I know where we are." Benrey choked out black to cyan sweet voice. Gordon couldn't read sweet voice colours but he just knew that wasn't good news. Suddenly the dim lighting shot up way too bright. Benrey recoiled, arms flying up over his eyes.  
"Ow." He mumbled. Gordon felt his heart pounding, the sense of undirected panic washed over him. Where were they? Is this place dangerous? What should he be afraid of. Without realising it he wrapped his arms around Benrey's shoulders. He knew Benrey was pretty much on his last legs and if there was danger near by the alien would be a pretty easy target. Gordon thought he would never see the day when he was protecting _Benrey_ of all people. I guess anything can happen in the fragmented reality torn between a video game and the real world.

"Sup." A slightly distorted voice said. Gordon flicked his eyes around until they zeroed in on a faint blue figure standing far off   
"You guys annoy me, you know that right? You two always fucking things up. What is up with that? Little bastard men." They ranted, they started to approach and the edges of their body became better defined. They resembled Benrey, but something was so _off_ about them.

Maybe it was the completely blue body that seemed to be faintly glowing, maybe it was the soulless white eyes and the dripping white mouth, maybe it was the lines separating parts of their body apart being almost blurred together, maybe it was the fact their voice was echoing off every surface in the room, maybe it was the fact that their body would glitch out of the lines of their own body.

Maybe it was the cord they were swinging around, and perhaps it was the murderous look they were staring at them with.

"You vessels always getting on my damn nerves. But now I've got you right where I need you! And how _easy_ it was, I felt like a sheepdog herding sheep for fucks sake. And neither of you saw me living as a little puddle right at your heels? Did you loose all peripheral vision or some shit? Whatever, why rant when you both have such little time!"

Virus started to rapidly approach.  
"Stay the fuck away!" Gordon yelled. Virus stopped in their tracks. They stared down Gordon, if that were even possible.  
"I'm not taking shit from a dirty murderer." They stated coldly, voice reverberating off the walls.  
"What?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> wwaaaa anyway sweet voice translation-  
> black 2 cyan: scared, don’t leave me
> 
> anyway sorry if theres any mistakes and stuff im just hitting post and not looking back


	14. gordon homophobia???????????

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my computer kept freezing while i was editing this i had to restart it twice D:  
> anyway gordon is homophobic and a killer, what more could you ask for <3 /j  
> also this chapter is short sorry but dont worry because next chapter is long :)
> 
> a little bit more about Virus is here
> 
> T/CW: Mentions of homophobia (but its a joke dw), kind of ableist sentence im not sure, and apart from talking about murder that might be it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this is number 14, we almost @ the end here lads

"Murderer? Man what?" Gordon felt stuck against the wall, maybe the sweat pouring off him had turned into glue and was now sticking him to the wall.  
"Oh my god, you know what the fuck I'm talking about asshole!" Virus's distorted voice twisted into anger, "I know what the fuck you did."  
"W-what did I do? These are baseless accusations!" Gordon defended himself.

"Gordon, murdering people is wrong." Benrey piped up from next to him.  
"Oh my god not you too." Gordon sighed, Benrey snickered. "I mean I haven't killed anyone... Recently. I mean I haven't killed anyone _that_ important, right?"  
"'Cept me." Benrey huffed.  
"Hey that was a group effort! But I don't think they mean you..."  
"Of course I don't fucking mean him, you stupid idiot." Virus snapped.  
"Then who? Who did I kill?"  
"You fucking know who!" Virus growled, "Don't play dumb with me!"  
"Oh, I don't think he's playing." Benrey teased, "Gordon _is_ pretty dumb."  
"Shut the hell your mouth." Gordon fired back, but both were laughing quietly to themselves.

"This is why I hate you guys. And I mean it when I say I am going to fucking enjoy _this_." Gordon paused at that comment.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Virus hissed out. They walked over to the cords they had prepared.  
"I... I would in fact like to know.." Gordon admitted.

Virus held a cord in their hand and stared right at the vessels.  
"It was so annoying to co-op a body you know. But I want that body, and if you're not going to leave on your own accord I'll just have to _forcibly evict you_!" Virus swung the cord around, "This cord will completely delete you, your whole brain will shut down and be the perfect _empty_ body for me to inhabit."  
"What the fuck dude." Gordon felt shell shocked. Virus was about to fucking _delete_ them.

"Shut the fuck up." Virus gripped the cord tighter "Do you really want those as your last words? Huh? Dumbass?"  
"I'm not letting you do this!" Gordon snapped.  
"What are you gonna do then? You can't do shit. Your body is super cringe with emotions and it's all shut down hasn't it?"  
Fuck. They were right. Gordon just needed a burst of adrenaline to get their body moving again. Luckily for him Virus made their first move...

Virus had angled the cord just right, suddenly leaping out of no where and straight at Benrey. The cord was aimed right at him, he knew what was happening. Faster then he could even comprehend himself Gordon ripped the gun out of his pocket, aimed and shot.  
"Stay the fuck back!" He roared, suddenly blood went flowing back through his body and he shot to his feet. Virus recoiled from the unexpected attack.  
"Ouch, dude!?" Virus whined, Benrey looked around as if he had no idea what just happened. To be honest Gordon wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't able to process anything happening right now.

Gordon reloaded his gun and shot another bullet at Virus.  
"Fuck you!" Virus dropped their cord and changed their consistency back to liquid. They slipped back to regain themself. Gordon took a second to simply look over Benrey. He seemed fine, fine, of course, in the loosest sense of the word. He still had blood dripping down his mouth. Gordon made a mental note that the second they got out of here he would take Benrey to a fucking hospital. Luckily, they seemed to have gathered enough sense to curl in on themself protectively. Benrey made a small unintelligible noise as he curled up.  
"Just stay there." Gordon leaned down and whispered, he put a reassuring hand on Benrey's shoulder as he did so before standing up and facing Virus. Since Black Mesa Gordon had to admit he was itching to just _shoot_ something again, and now he had a perfect target.

Virus had gathered themself and then BAM. Another shot. Virus let the bullet phase right through them. Staring down at Gordon they were getting real sick and tired of this man ruining everything. Now he was acting as if he didn't know who he mercilessly killed! For shame.  
"Stop shooting! You trying to kill me too?"  
"I don't know what you're on about, honest to god!" Gordon aimed his gun, ready to take the shot.  
"Are you fucking with me?" Virus asked, raising an eyebrow "Are you serious? You don't know?"  
"I don't, please enlighten me." Gordon put his finger on the trigger.

"I'm a code, a virus actually. But in Black Mesa every main character had a code." Virus stepped forward, leaning their head towards Gordon " _All_ of us." Virus ripped out 3 photos, each of them depicting the science team members with their respective code colour glowing around them, "See here, my camera can capture if someone has a code or not, and the only way to get rid of a code is to physically force them out! So, where the fuck-" Virus cut themself off to pull out their blank photo of Gordon "Is your code? Huh?"  
"My... Code?" Gordon was taken aback.  
"Yes motherfucker! Your code? Where is he?" Virus waved the photo around.

"I... I never saw my code, I would assume he was still with me but I never felt another presence in my body-"  
"BECAUSE YOU KILLED HIM." Virus accused, now was time to hit. Wires shot out the ground to encage themself, Gordon would have a harder time hitting Virus if he was covered by the wires.  
"I never even knew I had a code- Why do you even care?"

"You don't know? Before you even entered the game the other codes and I lived in the void together until we were uploaded into the bodies. We were... We were... I cared about him... I fucking..." Virus looked away, "I loved him bro."  
"I.. What?"  
"You idiot!" Virus suddenly began to shake with rage "You were so sick of having a code you killed him! There's nothing else that could've happened. I hate you, I'm going to fucking DESTROY you!"  
"I never did that, you're being irrational!"  
"Don't _gaslight_ me." Virus shot wires out, all aimed at Gordon. He didn't have time to argue this anymore.

Gordon shot out in a panic, Only one of his bullets landed and Virus hit the back of their own wire cage. And with that hit the wires surrounding them slid back into the ground, he swore he could hear Virus mutter a curse under their breath before sliding off again. Gordon took the chance to give a sparing glance back at Benrey, his eyes were glazed over and was staring at nothing, he just needed to beat Virus's ass and then he could take Benrey to the hospital, just a little more time. Please.

Virus checked once more and the cords _were_ quite ready to be plugged in. Let's take this a step further then. Virus grabbed onto the cord and turned purposeful and watchful eyes onto Gordon, Benrey was weak but Gordon was still in good condition. Their next choice was an obvious one. Eliminate the obstacle. 

He was distracted, perfect. But he was still moving, which was an issue, Virus shot an angry wire which missed its mark only by a hair. It slammed right by Gordon's leg which sent him reeling back. One more wire that made Gordon stumble back. He was scared now, he was acting on instinct. And that was what made it quite easy to knock him off his feet, heh, feetman. 

Gordon was stunned, he had been pushed over by a wire and onto the ground. His only instinct was to hold his gun so tightly his knuckles turned white, Virus stood over his incapacitated body. They had wrapped the cord around their hand. Virus took one glance at the cord and then at Gordon. They grinned and Gordon _immediately_ understood what their plan was. Virus slammed the cord forward to sink straight into Gordon but was cut short. Just before it made contact Virus suddenly fell back with a BANG.

Virus hit the floor, Gordon's eyes focused in on Benrey standing behind where Virus had been with his crowbar held up in the air.  
"Bullseye, bingo, motherfucker." Benrey spat, his arms dropped from the air, the crowbar also hitting the ground with a thud. Benrey reached forward and pulled Gordon up. After getting onto his knees Gordon pushed himself up to his feet and brushed himself off.

"I got 'em." Benrey said, staring straight through Gordon and swaying slightly on his feet. It was quite clear that Benrey should not be standing.  
"What the fuck is that guys problem?" Gordon snapped, backing away from the knocked back Virus.  
"Us, apparently." Benrey shrugged.  
"You should go and sit back, you look like you're about to faint."  
"...I thought they were gonna get your arm again, I panicked."  
"I would _love_ to see them try to get my arm, I don't take limbs for granted anymore." Gordon said through gritted teeth, reloading his gun.

And with the little time they had left before Virus regained themself Gordon dragged Benrey back.  
"I gotta- I gotta protect you from them." Benrey stated, but the way their words slurred with oncoming unconsciousness told Gordon he was in no state to.  
"I think you've done good protecting me ok? Just stay right here, I'll deal with them." Gordon let Benrey slide down the wall he leaned him against and crumple to the ground.   
"Of course I- I did good I'm a guard that's my job." Gordon said nothing in reply, just a small pat on the top of Benrey's helmet. Benrey was either unconscious or zoned out. Now, Gordon turned towards Virus who was back on their feet.

"Assholes, both of you." They growled, "First you killed my love and now you just hit and shoot me that's not nice. I think you're being irrational, what have I ever done to you?"  
"Well first of all you've been attacking us from the very start so I think us fighting back is _pretty fucking justified_. And, I'm sorry for killing your friend even though I have no recollection of that happening." Gordon retorted. Benrey snorted.  
"Friend?" He piped up from the fetal position he was sitting in.  
"What? They... they weren't like enemies or something."  
"Dude, you joking? Right?"  
"I have no idea what you mean."  
"Oh my god,, man I'm supposed to be the brain damaged one."  
"Don't say that, also I don't know what you mean I'm serious."

Virus stared at the both of them going back and forth.  
"No, I agree with him, you're kind of fucking stupid." Virus drawled.  
"Stay out of this!" Gordon shot back.  
"Fuck no."  
"Gordon this is bordering on homophobic I swear." Benrey sighed, Gordon's eyes widened.  
"OH FUCK THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN."  
"Dude... Bro... Man..."  
"Ok, I see I might have made a mishap there."  
"Gordon homophobic moments??"  
"I am not homophobic-"  
"Gordon?? You're?? Cishet homophobe?? I'm sorry I'll pray for you." He put his hands together and pretended to pray.  
"I am not a heterosexual, you absolute loser." Gordon sighed, Benrey paused.  
"You're,,, not? I have chance?"  
"What- I mean-" Gordon stammered, flustered.  
"Gayden."  
"Shut the fuck up."

Virus started to ascend upon them, far too busy with their own conversation to remember the guy literally trying to kill them was still in the room.   
"Do you two ever shut the fuck up, honestly?" They said that quite loudly to absolutely zero reaction from the others. Whatever, grabbing the long cords Virus started to walk over to them. Gordon, unfortunately, noticed Virus approaching. He pulled out his gun and warned them to stay back. Virus merely kept walking, making their body slime-like and having the passing bullets slip right through them. Gordon reloaded his weapon and pointed it again.

"Don't you ever learn?" Virus asked but the lack of tone made it sound more like a statement then a question, "You can't attack me, you can't win against me, I will win here. This is a fruitless endeavor for the both of you. I cannot physically think of one thing that could beat me."

And then, at that moment, Gordon sensed another presence. The feeling was weird, familiar and yet so far off anything he'd ever experienced. He could feel someone enter the building, intentions clouded and unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual im just gonna hit post and never look back <3


	15. old friends :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here he is!!!!!! 
> 
> Because this is my favourite chapter I get to make annoying and constant references to my favourite holiday (Halloween obv, im just living out my dreams of a proper Halloween because its so pog but the majority of people where i live dont care about it 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done here guys! 
> 
> Anyway i have school work 2 do so i dont have time to check over this chapter again so uh it might suck but hey lol i tried :) bye

He stepped inside and looked around, eyes landing on vague shapes hidden by shadow. The room smelt like mold and the walls felt faintly like moss and cobwebs. He ran his hand over the walls, traces of those he thought he knew were crawling all over the place. His vision was blurred, it had been ages since he had opened his eyes. The blaring light outside was not an ideal place to let ones eyes readjust and he learnt that the hard way. He had been wandering this plane of existence for weeks, observing from the outside as he was accustomed to. But there was a stabbing feeling taking over him, he had to step in now. Perhaps stepping in was an action long overdue.

The hallways were similar to a dark maze on a harrowing Halloween night. He had no recollection of ever experiencing Halloween before. There was a scurry from a hallway long off, he expected to be greeted by a small rodent but it was instead a tall being. He recognised the other, the tall man seemed to wish he did not recognise him.

The man's eyes narrowed and peered down at him, a lower being. He crossed his arms and stared down at him with a strange expression, a look that was mixed with anger, confusion, hate, and a shade of sadness. No words were interchanged between the two, he tried to motion his peace with a small wave but the man turned up his nose and stormed off.

That never would of happened before, their conversations would used to be described much similar to the sweetness of Halloween candy. He had no memory of Halloween, where was this coming from? Traces of his other's memories must be rubbing onto his own. He did not mind it much. He continued to walk, walk, walk. The sound of his heavy footsteps rattled off the wall alerting his arrival to anyone who figured it was worth their time to listen.

His eyes snatched on a figure made of blue, he felt bad about the drop in mood upon properly diagnosing that colour a more cyan colour. Observing further he saw a second being, one of a dark forestry green. They were crowding around a laptop while shaking with laughter as they popped smaller versions of themselves out a machine situated by the laptop.

The cyan man turned to face him. His eyes held more warmth then the yellow's upon recognising him. In fact, if his wide grin was anything to go off of, one would say he was quite pleased to see him. There was an exchanging of greetings, and an excited tour of the coomer clone creations. While the green man said very few words the other continued to ramble on about nothing in particular. Then his face had dropped slightly, he crossed his arms and shot him a sad look. He understood, he didn't like what the man said next but he could spare an understanding.

He decided to tell the men his plan, the cyan's eyes darkened upon listening to it and the green man nodded soberly. There was recognition in the cyan man's eyes not only of his arrival but of the inevitable route they had to take. They had both agreed, albeit with great sadness. Before he left the cyan man begged to show off one last thing, to recognise his genius. He decided to watch, he was in no rush, this might as well be the last time they interact after all. Why not make it count. 

Before they all parted ways he told them about how he wished they could of spoken more often, how he was enamored with their creations, and how exciting both of their characters were. They had grinned at the praise and took each other by the hands and walked off.

They were always the more cooperative ones, as long as they were together they would do pretty much anything. That left two more, the yellow man was perhaps now in hiding. It was quite a shame that he did not have to explain his own plan anymore, for he knew the other two were quite aware of his own intentions. Neither of them were willing to work with that. Thinking from his own perspective it was almost absurd but looking at it from an another point of view it was a reasonable reaction. Very reasonable. He would just have to show them his way of thinking.

He decided to look for the yellow man again, procrastinating looking for the blue. Walking around, the scents and traces of them covered the walls and overshadowed his other senses. He was lead to a more open space that held many openings and many exits. Some of them had marks of his friends, others went unexplored. One interesting thing was the weak spot in the wall that held no exits, or so it seemed. With the power only someone like him could muster he placed his good hand against the wall and felt the bricks shift away to an brightly illuminated hallway. The bright light pouring from it was not for him. That was an exit he couldn't take. He carried on.

He wandered hallways and corridors. Some had been caved in. It reminded him of a haunted house on Halloween, he had never heard of Halloween before. These new memories worming their way into his own head was a sign his other was nearby, there were waves of distress coming from his location. As selfish as it was he decided that was not a matter of importance just yet. The dripping murderous intent flooding from where he supposed the yellow man had went was more important to him at that moment.

He followed the flood of angry and red emotions until he met up with the yellow man outside a door. The man carried no readable expression on his face, he didn't seem upset nor frustrated that he had shown up, he tossed a glance at him then back at a locked door. He said nothing and simply chose to stare at the door, lacking any motive or anger but rage was still drowning around him. He decided to ask why he was mad, the man offered nothing of substance for a few moments until letting his calm shield drop. Still keeping up with a bored and sorrowful tone the man told him about what was inside the room, he had no key to the inside. He wandered why the yellow man was not able to bust the door open. He explained that the door was extremely sturdy, he was told not to lay a finger on any of them but he wanted to hurt them badly.

He found that when they, all of them, are confused their confusion will melt into anger. That is a more familiar and understandable emotion for them. However that emotion is hard to keep under control, he had watched them lash out and cause hurt out of confusion and being left in the dark. He even saw it in his other, he had become rather good at weeding emotions out so he could tell the yellow man was confused. He decided to explain his plan, he told the man he didn't need to think about it and it was not a confusing concept. It was a peaceful plan, he did not have to hurt anyone. No one would be hurt.

The man said he _wanted_ to cause hurt. He didn't really, he knew this, he knew him. He tried to explain to the other this, he tried telling him that hurting them would not make him less angry, it would not resolve his confusion or other draining emotions. He was only feeding the flame. The yellow man left again, but this time his head was bowed and clearly running things over in his head. This is a trick, the man breathed but did not elaborate.

The murderous feelings of rage clogging up his own senses had died down and was left with a dwindling flame, he felt like he was watching a scented candle die down at the early hours of the morning after a long Halloween night. He did not know what Halloween was about. He only knew that there was a growing painful feeling growing from another room, his breath had hitched upon a quick recognition on just who this would be. He even felt his hand shaking slightly, he did not fear them. He held no hatred or distain in his heart for the other, they were confused. They were _very_ confused.

He knew the risks, he ran the most potential ones over in his head as he approached. As long as he kept some distance there shouldn't be that much of a problem. It should go smoothly as long as there were no interruptions or derailing. There was a similar rage pouring off of them, but this time it wasn't disguised as well. It was quite clearly a lash out of confusion, they were misguided. All of them had been.

He had briefly considered fast travelling there by the vents, however he found the feeling of the atoms of his body shifting was quite unnerving. He preferred to stay as stable and solid as he could manage. With every step further he selfishly wished he had the privilege of leaving it up to someone else, he knew that was only a mere fantasy but he wanted to turn back. He felt... Ashamed.

He was closing in, feelings of rage were seeping through him and temporarily stunning him. He heard yelling from inside, he heard a thud and a yelp as a body hit the ground. He heard more yelling, an argument and a petty one at that. He put his hand on the doorknob and pushed it open.

...

"Personally I think that It's a bit presumptuous of you to say nothing can beat you." Gordon snapped.  
"Then name one thing that can beat me?" Virus retorted.  
"Shouldn't you be aware of your _own_ weaknesses? Bro? It would be a bit idiotic if you had no idea what could kill you."  
"So you know your own weaknesses? Tell me then."  
"Why the fuck would I tell you."  
"Exactly."

"What even is this conversation it feels like I'm going in circles."  
"Blah, blah, fuck you."   
"Very intelligent reply, thank you."  
"You say that is if you have ever said or thought anything smart in your life."  
"My guy, I am a scientist."  
"And? I've met plenty scientists that are dumb as fucking rocks, I've met you for example, I've also met Tommy."  
"Don't say that shit about Tommy, asshole."  
"Blah, you're just jealous of me."  
"What the fuck are you on about??"

Virus said absolutely nothing in reply, instead they shifted their eyes and the conversation onto Benrey's unmoving body.  
"The fucking state of him." Virus snarled "I would've preferred if the vessel wasn't damaged but he just wouldn't stay down." Their words was more just them thinking aloud.  
"Oh piss off." Gordon grumbled.  
"I wonder if the brain damage will stay after I delete him, hopefully not I would rather-" Virus was cut off by Gordon forcefully kicking him in the stomach and throwing him back.   
"Shut the fuck up." Gordon warned.  
"Ouch, you're such a pissbaby mean guy." Virus whined.  
"You were the one being mean? Are you out of your mind?"

Virus stumbled for a bit before resting back on two feet, they stared Gordon right in the eye.  
"You'll pay man, you'll fucking pay." They leaned over to grab the cord and held it dangerously close to Gordon's chest who hadn't much as flinched.  
"Go on, do it. Plug me in and _kill_ me, you'll regret it." Gordon could feel them, a buzzing feeling sitting patiently right outside. Please have good intentions, please, he can't risk this again.

"The only regret I have is not telling the military to go for the head." In a blind rage from that sentence alone Gordon threw a punch straight at Virus's head, throwing them back once more and letting them hit the ground with a thud.

"MOTHERFUCKER." Gordon yelled out in rage, pure fucking anger.  
"You're saying that like I got your arm cut off, I would _never_ do that." They said, voice dripping with venom. He didn't say anything in return, just shot blindly at Virus. The rapid fire had ceased when he got tired, he suddenly felt very weak and sat down, reloading his gun.  
"Don't shoot at me!"  
"You gave me a reason to!" Gordon shot back.

The argument ceased when the door opened. Virus had their trademark angrily bored look on their face but felt everything freeze when it wasn't one of the other viruses step inside. It was someone much different to the viruses.

"C-Code?" Their throat suddenly felt very dry, suddenly their heart could be heard and was thumping loudly, suddenly their arms and hands were shaking, suddenly their head felt very light. Suddenly _he_ was back. But, they knew better then to trust this, they knew that this wasn't the good ending. There was no possibility of that. So Virus took one look at Code and ran.

Gordon turned and stared at Code.  
"Howdy."

...

Upon opening door was exactly as he had predicted, he watched their entire body freeze up. He watched as their sudden stun of confusion turned back into anger as they ran away. If he so much as blinked he would of missed it. But he did relish in hearing his own name again, Code. Now that Virus had ran off it was time to put the rest of his plan into motion.

Code looked at his other who looked exhausted, his hair was a tangled mess and he had blood staining his clothes whilst holding a gun close to his chest. He watched as the being sitting next to his other stirred and shot up, their eyes stared right at Code, just as predicted, confusion to anger. His other looked apprehensive at best to be looking at Code but the being next to him urged his other to shoot him dead. His other nodded.

Code quickly put his arms up in a surrender.  
"No, I won't hurt you, I promise." Code knew if he was shot the bullets wouldn't phase by, it would actually _hurt_.  
"I've done enough trusting of viruses." The being snapped, egging his other on to just take the shot, it was fear that was consuming his actions. That was an easy fix.

"Look, watch me." Code walked over and gathered the cords in his arms and dragged them away from the two. The two being Gordon, his other, and Benrey, the being. He dropped them far out of sight from Gordon and Benrey, he dropped his pointed gun to his sides. Benrey said nothing but clearly inched closer to Gordon's side. Gordon was staring down Code's gun arm as he approached the two.

"I won't let them delete you, promise." He assured them. Gordon visibly relaxed.  
"Thank god, a trustworthy virus."  
"I am still a code, but thank you for trusting me anyway." Code looked over at Benrey who definitely still wasn't convinced that Code only had good intentions, Benrey reminded him of Virus, that was nice. But still needed his trust for his plan to work out well.

Code then saw the very noticeable bleeding coming from Benrey's hands and arm. He had some bandages in his bag, now where was it. He rummaged for a second before offering the little he had to them.  
"I saw you were injured." He would apply them himself if he had both arms still with him, he wasn't that upset about the arm. He was happy to take the fall for Gordon once they were in the middle, it was the least he could do.

Gordon took the bandages hesitantly from Code and applied them to the cuts on Benrey's hands from the broken glass and wrapped it around the hole caused by Virus's wire. That was unfortunately the extent of bandages Code was in possession of, he briefly apologised for his lack of medical equipment, Gordon shook his head and thanked him anyway, saying it was a good amount. Benrey said nothing but they were not as tense as they previously were.

"Your name is Code, right? You were fr- dating Virus, right?" Gordon started cautiously.  
"That's correct."  
"They accused me of murdering you, did I actually kill you or not?"  
"You never killed me, however I could understand where the accusation came from."  
"Care to explain, please?"

"Back in the void, our place of residence, Virus and I were in fact dating. Until it was our time to be uploaded into what we believed was to be empty vessels for us to participate in the game with. However, the vessels were not in fact empty, the NPC's chosen had become self aware during their time of existing beforehand in Black Mesa. I was implemented into your body, I knew you were the player, the protagonist. Because of this I went... Passive, I chose not to interact or do anything while inhabiting the body and stayed out of your way. However, none of the others were aware I wasn't controlling any part of the body, they must of... Assumed I was and became confused when it clearly was not me who was replying. After you spawned in the middle I left the body voluntarily. Of course they must of just assumed me dead." Code attempted in explaining, "I wish I could of taken over just for a second but, you've seen what happens when codes try fighting for control haven't you?"

"Them fighting for control over the others self awareness made them evil?" Gordon asked.  
"It made them confused, and that made them angry. It corrupted their code into a virus. I'm here to fix this, I am no longer sitting around anymore."  
"Nice, character development." Benrey piped up.  
"Thank you, unfortunately I only have 2 of the viruses who have agreed to my plan. I would like to ask for some help from the two of you." Code dipped his head down.

"Uh oh."  
"I would just like you to assist me a little, hopefully it won't lead you to any immediate danger. Please just convince VT to come to this room, then I need you to free your friends and lead them to the exit gate."  
"The... Exit gate?"  
"Don't worry, the gate is harmless, I opened it up, the door leading to it is in the open room. It also doesn't matter the order you do it in, if you free them first just tell them to go ahead without you. I'll deal with Virus but it may take... A while..."

"Wait, what exactly _is_ your plan?" Gordon asked just as Code was preparing to walk off.  
"Gordon... We cannot coexist. I came to terms with that since the beginning. They have not."  
"Do you mean..."  
"The cords will delete everything from a vessels brain, but it works on viruses too."  
"You're gonna kill them all. Aren't you."

Code stared straight through Gordon.  
"Myself too, you can't pass through the exit gate if me, your code, is still present. It's one or the other."  
"That's such a sacrifice, why are you doing this? Why not just follow Virus's plan and taking our bodies?"  
"Would you rather I did? Don't fret, to be honest I hated it. Being in a body even if I didn't quite exactly do much. I missed the void, I missed my friends, I missed my lover."  
Code glanced down sadly.

"I'm... I'm sorry."  
"It's no-ones fault, you shouldn't worry. It's fate, that's all it ever will be. I don't get the ideal ending, I'm ok with that. As long as I can guide others to their ending is all that matters."

"So... The plan is to free our friends and convince VT to follow your plan? That's it?" Gordon asked, suddenly very uncomfortable.  
"That's all I ask. Now, I need to go find Virus. They probably hid in the vents, that might make things harder. I'm not a fan of changing my consistency, I tried once and it started blurring the outlines of my body. I guess that's why they're all so blurry. What an abuse of power." And with that small rant Code walked away, leaving Benrey and Gordon alone.

...

"So, let's go try and find our friends now we have the opportunity to." Gordon stated, he helped Benrey to his feet, _not_ by pulling him up by the arm. Benrey had stumbled but was keeping himself up by wrapping his arms around Gordon's arm. They walked together, Benrey was walking a little faster. Gordon tried to urge him a bit further but it only ended with him almost falling over.   
"Don't do that, I'm on low HP bro." Benrey muttered.  
"Yeah, my bad."

Most of the corridors were still caved in so it took a bit of different turns to find their way back to the open space. There they saw VT standing in the middle of the room. He was just kind of staring blankly at something he was holding in his hands. It was a box of matches. Benrey slipped out of no where and just as Gordon wrapped an arm around the other to catch him he realised the room had been doused with oil. 

"What are you going to do?" Gordon asked, VT turned towards him with a bored expression.  
"Fuck it look like? I'm burning this place to the ground." He shrugged.  
"Dude... Can it wait, please?"  
"No dude."

"Wait, wait. We need our friends out before you fucking destroy the place. Ok, Ok, uhh how about this, if you go and follow Code we'll burn this place for you." Gordon offered, holding a hand out. VT stared at him accusingly.  
"Huh, you'll do it for me?"   
"Sure dude, I would love nothing more then to see this horror burn." Gordon grinned, VT grinned wider. Benrey only shrunk behind Gordon, hiding his fear horribly. His throat felt tight just at the sight of the tall yellow man. Gordon noticed and subtlety pushed himself ahead of Benrey, obscuring him from view.

"Hmm... I don't really want to go though, I kinda don't want to, y'know, fucking die." VT's voice suddenly went sour after some consideration. Then Benrey stepped forward and pulled something from his pocket.  
"No you have to go." Benrey bit back fear and showed off the piece of paper "I have my passport and I say you have to go."  
"What? When did you get that?" Gordon whispered.  
"I made it back in the other room." Benrey whispered back "It's not real, don't tell anyone."  
"Hm," VT stared at the fake passport the alien was holding, studying it thoroughly "Guess I have no choice." He shrugged again and handed the box of matches to Benrey and walked off.

"See what happens when you have your passport?" Benrey teased.   
"Wait, gimme that." Gordon snatched the passport and matches from Benrey.  
"No dude, what are you gonna do?" Benrey pulled at the bandages wrapped around his hands. Gordon opened the passport and there was nothing written inside, on the outside there was the word passport written but the handwriting was shaky and messy, it was also spelt passprot. He tried. Gordon pulled the pen out of his pocket that was sitting next to the key. He wrote some ID inside the passport and handed it back to Benrey.  
"Now it's authentic."  
"Nice, when we get out I'll make you one."  
"Can't wait."

Thinking of the pen in his pocket he remembered the reason he had it, the soulmate diary. He had dropped it a while back but the two copies were sitting perfectly on a chair. Perhaps VT had left them there. Gordon stared at them for a second.  
"Hey look at that." Benrey commented.  
"We should leave them." Gordon huffed, "I don't want to take any creation made by them."  
"We don't need it anyway." Benrey shrugged.

They walked down to the door and Gordon held the key up and ready. Benrey tensed up, he wondered if they would ignore him or hate him. He did fight them after all, but he did it to help! But they might not of known that. Benrey gulped as Gordon slipped the key inside and unlocked it with ease. He pushed the door open and was greeted with a dim room.

He reached over and flicked the light on and saw their friends. Tommy was leaning against the wall with his neck in a very uncomfortable position. Dr Coomer was connected to the ground by the collar and chain, this one didn't seem to be shrinking which was a relief but Benrey still hissed at the sight of it. Dr Bubby however was suspended in green liquid, trapped inside a tube. Gordon abandoned Benrey momentarily to break the collar apart, luckily it tore with little effort. Then Gordon slowly nudged Tommy until he stirred, seeing his lidded eyes look up assured Gordon enough to punch open a hole in the tube Bubby was hovering in. With a splash the green liquid poured out and the noise woke all 3 up.

Harold Coomer eyed Gordon cheerily.  
"Ah, hello Gordon!" He greeted warmly. Gordon almost cried, it had been ages since he had last heard that.  
"H-hello Coomer." He choked on his words.   
"M-mr Freeman?" Tommy pushed himself to his feet and looked around, "Where are we?" Gordon was about to reply when Bubby broke through the rest of the glass with a roar.   
"THEY PUT ME IN MY FUCKING TUBE AGAIN. THE BASTARDS." Bubby stumbled out of the broken tube and readjusted the glasses on his face.

"Now, where the fuck are we? Last I remember we were in chunky cheese." Bubby grumbled, examining the room carefully.  
"It's a long fucking story." Gordon sighed.  
"Well? Spit it out!" Bubby growled impatiently.  
"Gordon, please tell us the story." Coomer beamed.  
"Yeah Mr Freeman I want to hear :)" Tommy piped up.

"Guess It's story time. Well, it all started after the game ended..." Gordon went on to explain most of what had happened upon entering the middle, he decided to leave out some... Less important parts... He made it more digestible, they didn't need to know about the hotel that's for sure. That was between Gordon and Benrey. He did explain that they were pretty much possessed but Benrey had helped split them up, and the guys who possessed them should be dead pretty soon.

"THOSE FUCKERS." Bubby spat out in the middle of the explanation.  
"Now Bubby, it is rude to interrupt a story." Coomer interjected.  
"THAT FUCKING CODE- OR WHATEVER IT IS. ALWAYS CONTROLLING WHAT I DID!"  
"Y-you guys felt that too?" Tommy gasped.  
"Yes!" Coomer smiled.  
"That was so scary." Tommy said sadly "But they're gone right? The guys controlling us are gone?"  
"Should be soon." Gordon shrugged.  
"Gordon, I am happy with that news."  
"I think we all are."

Gordon went on to recount, in as little detail as possible, what went down in the base up to right now.  
"We were _kidnapped_ Mr Freeman?" Tommy mumbled.  
"Yeah, but you're good now, we saved you!"  
"We?" It occurred Gordon that none of them had noticed Benrey chilling behind them.  
"Yeah hi sup." He spluttered out.  
"Benrey!" Tommy yelled, he ran up to the other but his face dropped at the state of him, "Oh no you're hurt!"  
"Oh yeah, I forgot haha." He lied, pulling on the bandages nervously. Tommy reached a hand out for Benrey to take and he flinched back and hit the wall. Tommy retracted and Benrey relaxed again. Tommy looked to Gordon for explanation and Gordon only shrugged. If Benrey was gonna speak on the arm then he would, but obviously not now.

"Are you gonna be ok?" Tommy asked, examining the amount of blood that had seeped onto his clothes.  
"I think he just needs to go to hospital." Gordon spoke for him. Tommy nodded.  
"Yeah, hospital. I've never been there haha gonna be new location unlocked." Benrey joked, trying desperately to look into the eyes of his friends and not see the soulless eyes of the viruses staring back. It's not them, they're the real deal now. They wouldn't hurt you, you're ok. Benrey repeated that in his mind while trying and failing to hold eye contact.

"So you two have been together.. Alone.. The whole time?" Bubby asked accusingly.  
"Yeah?" Gordon raised an eyebrow.  
"Ha! That's pretty gay, bet you two held hands." Bubby smirked.  
"Hey- That's not gay!" Gordon flustered.  
"It is a little gay, Gordon." Coomer decided.  
"Yeaah we held hands and shit." Benrey intertwined their own hands as a demonstration. Bubby gasped.  
"Oh, dating?" Gordon and Benrey said nothing.

"Well, if you head out of this hallway it leads to the open room. There should be an exit there, the one not surrounded by other exits. Don't take the wrong one. It should lead you to an exit gate, just walk through it. We'll uh, catch up with you?" Gordon explained, "And watch your step, it's slippery."  
The three trailed out the door single file.

"That just leaves the two of us then." Gordon said as the door closed, "Once again."  
"Maybe we'll kiss now, who knows?" Benrey sniffed, he looked at Gordon expectantly but didn't get the answer he wanted.  
"Yeah, yeah. Haha Gordon's bi let's make fun of him." Gordon rolled his eyes.  
"I'm not making fun of you?" Benrey looked to the ground.  
"You keep calling me homophobic and gay, you kept flirting with me back in black mesa. It's kind of obvious you're making fun of me."  
"It's kind of obvious you're dense as rocks." Benrey snapped back. Thoughts bubbled up in Gordon's mind but fizzled out when he felt the weight of the matches in his pocket.

"You wanna burn this motherfucker down?" Gordon offered with a slightly twisted grin.  
"You don't need to ask me twice." Benrey lifted his head back up. They walked out of the room and made sure the science team had made it to the right room. Seeing the footprints left in the oil leading to the hallway was confirmation enough.

Gordon pulled a match out and lit it, fire gleaming in his eyes. Time to watch this nightmare burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yoo its Code, he gets a word name like Virus because he is simply built different. 
> 
> I also do not know how to write the science team D: def tried tho
> 
> Code, reappearing: Hey guys whats up  
> Virus: omg I thought you were dead :(  
> Code: We will be soon :)


	16. bye bye :((

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virus and Code go to super hell 4 being gay not clickbait /j
> 
> TW: Death, talking about after death because i am *absolutely* projecting my fear of dying, and uh sort of religious talk? like heaven and hell and stuff idk im not religious but its brief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *as the world caves in starts playing faintly in the background*

The room was just as dark as they felt. Cornered, stuck in this dead end with the others footsteps getting closer and closer. They clutched their helmet and shrunk against the wall, their helmet as in the jittered lines making out their body that was supposedly what their helmet would be. Shrink, disappear. They wished they still had the energy to just melt into a puddle and hide in the shrouded corner.. Shrouded corner, Virus backed away into the corner and ducked down. Hide, hide, hide, shit- The door creaked open and _he_ stepped inside.

His tired looking white eyes scanned the room, but he held his head high and then turned towards them. Fuck, curse Code's ability to sniff people out by emotion. He would always know exactly how you were feeling and why almost immediately, Virus was never good at stuff like that. Over time in the void Virus tried to pick that skill up as well, it did not work as well.

But Code started to slowly approach the cornered Virus as if they were a frightened wild animal. Virus thought they were dreaming, Code was back. Their boyfriend was _back_ … But, he was dead. Gordon had killed him. Virus backed up further against the wall, scratching the wall. Go away, go away, you're not Code. 

"Virus." Code whispered, he tried getting closer. That was too close, that is not Code.   
"Stay back." Virus hissed, their voice wavering.  
"Vi, It's me, ok?" Code tried to get even closer, he was the real deal, he needed Virus to calm down. Virus did not understand.  
"S-STAY BACK." Virus warned. Confusion to anger. Confusion to anger. Confusion to anger. An emotion more digestible, an emotion they could understand.

Code could tell, they were confused and mad and didn't know what was happening. Code was supposed to be dead. This wasn't real.   
"Calm down. Just breathe for a second." Code would always say that, he used to always say that. How dare he copy his words.  
"STOP." And with that Virus let at least 15 wires shoot out of the wall surrounding them. Each wire shooting out straight at Code.

But, Code didn't as much as flinch. The wires would reach up to Code's body but never touch. They wavered the second they got near and just flopped at the end. Virus may think the Code in front of them was a fake but they just couldn't hurt anyone who looked like him. Gordon was... barely an exception, he may of looked like Code but they were nothing the same... ~~He couldn't even do the job himself, merely because of his resemblance to Code and opting to let the Military do it. Benrey didn't want to leave Gordon, the murderer, alone. So they would have to make Gordon want to stay away instead... That doesn't matter now.~~

So Code kicked the wires aside, Virus was angry and they were scared. They knew Code's plan.  
"Go away, you're not Code." Virus hissed, "Code is gone."  
"I... It's me Virus. I never died, it's ok." Code crouched down to be eye to eye to Virus.  
"What." They said nothing else.  
"I never died, I'm sorry. I went passive in a way. I chose not to interfere with the players actions, I saw all four of you get corrupted by trying to fight back. I couldn't risk it. When we made it to the middle I left on my own will, I'm sorry." Code tried explaining, Virus pushed against the wall again.

"You _promised_." They hissed, but there was no hate to be found, "You promised that when we entered the game we wouldn't be apart- I- I missed you.."  
"I know, I know, I missed you as well." Code leaned in closer, "I promise it's me, I'm real. I'm alive." 

Virus sniffed, glowing white tears falling from their soulless eyes and down their cheek.  
"It's gonna be alright." And with that Code placed their left hand on Virus's head before pulling them into a hug. He held them close, arm wrapped around Virus's shoulders and holding them against their chest. The lines of their body melting together. Brown. Orange and Blue makes Brown. That was always their favourite colour.

Code used their arm to pull Virus up.  
"We won't be apart again." He promised, Virus nodded into him.  
"Promise?"  
"I promise, for real this time... Please follow me." Code pulled away from the hug and moved his arm down to hold Virus's hand. Virus stared at their interlocked hands with such content. Relish in the feeling, it feels like brown. Like the soft browns covering the trees in Autumn, the soft brown of a knitted sweater in the cold weather, the brown of a hot mug of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate even. Reminded him of Halloween, Halloween sounded nice.

Code pulled Virus along, walking through the dark hallways back to the computer room. They froze up when realising what exactly came next. Code only held their hand tighter, it was warm. Focus on the warm. Code somehow knew the base well.  
"Where were you this whole time... How did you know when to come?" Virus continued to stare at their hands.  
"I did as I always did, I observed from a distance. It was the overwhelming hatred and anger that made me realise now was when I had to step in."  
"It feels like you know this building well, I may of only been here like a week but I only figured it out by watching the cameras constantly?"

"I'm good at sensing things, I can sense who walked here, everyone's footprints feel... Different."  
"So you're just following the feelings?"  
"Pretty much."  
"You have such weird powers."  
"You can summon wires from walls, Virus."  
"True, true."

The computer room felt cold, there was a feeling of warmth from the corner. VB and VC. He had walked out the room to allow Gordon and Benrey to leave when VC and VB walked in, hand in hand. Cyan and Green makes a nice colour. They were always more cooperative, but Code didn't like to look at them now. VT hadn't spoke a word to Code, they simply plugged himself in. At least he had cooperated in the end.

The three bodies were now drained of all colour, grey figures in the corner of the room, VB and VC were leaning against each other. Hands still interlocked during their last breaths. Virus surveyed the room.  
"This is it, huh?" They said dejectedly, "Game over."  
"You could say that." Code urged them along to the line of cords ready for use. Virus stared at them and just as Code leaned down to grab one they flinched back.

"Please, wait! I'm... I don't want to die, I don't want to die yet." They yelled out in a panic and stumbled back. Their breathing was fast. They've died before of course, they died and they would drag Benrey and their body back to the void to heal, but most of the time wounds would heal over almost immediately. Virus gripped their own arms, however many times they died did not matter when faced with permadeath right in front of them.

"Please, one more minute." Virus pleaded. Code smiled sympathetically. They both sat down together, right by the cords and the countdown screen above them.   
"A minute," Code stated, "I understand, dying for real is a scary concept."  
"What happens after?" Code paused at that.  
"Peace." He claimed, glancing at the dead grey figures of what was once their friends, "After death is peace."  
"How are you sure." Virus rocked while sitting "There will be nothing peaceful for me after death for all I've done." Code picked up Virus's hand.  
"Then I will have no choice but to drag you to peace with me."  
"Is there a place we go after dying?"

"Maybe heaven or hell, perhaps we shall return to the void."  
"This isn't the game anymore, I doubt it."  
"Then I'll carve an afterlife out for all of us, I just want to be with you all, that's all I ever wanted." Code rested his obsolete hand on top of Virus's head and pulled them close. They wouldn't notice.  
"If only they uploaded us into different bodies."  
"Funny how fate works like that."  
"Luck of the roll I guess."

The screen above them flickered, Code shifted his hand to the side of Virus's face to hold it in place. They can't see.  
"What are we gonna do in the afterlife."  
"Maybe we can haunt reality as ghosts." Code shrugged, Virus didn't even notice that he had plugged them in, hadn't noticed the creeping grey growing up their body. Had not noticed the tears welling in his eyes.  
 **Data deleted 10%**  
"No matter what happens, after death and to it I will be with you. I promise."  
"Finally." Virus stared right into Code's blank yet expressive white eyes.

"I... I almost can't believe it's really you." Virus curled up, "I resented Gordon for taking you, I hated Benrey for having what I wanted, I avoided VB and VC for having what I wanted. I hated VT for trying to replace it. I wanted to have our bodies back so badly but all I really wanted was you." Code made circling motions against Virus's cheek as they spoke.  
"I know, I know." The grey had reached their legs. At that moment Virus became more delirious.  
 **Data deleted 20%**

Virus looked at Code's obsolete gun arm.  
"What- what happened to your arm? It's gone." They stared up at Code who knew exactly what this meant, they were losing their memory.  
"Ah, it was stolen." Code explained, Virus stared wide-eyed.  
"Really? That's so fucked up." They groaned, they reached a hand out and grabbed Code's arm, fascinated.  
"Is it going to come back?" They asked genuinely.  
"Do you think it will?"  
"Yeah totally."  
 **Data deleted 30%**

"Hey... Where are we?" Code had moved into a sitting position while holding Virus in his arms, or one arm.  
"Where do you think we are?" Code asked softly. He felt more tears pricking at his eyes and eventually they started sliding down.  
"Uhh, It's dark? The void? We're home." Virus attempted. Code only nodded.  
"Definitely. We're home." More tears fell down and his voice wavered, Virus didn't notice. Their brain was, for lack of better words, shutting down.   
**Data deleted 40%**

Virus stopped talking for a while, then they spoke up.  
"Are you still here?" Their voice was no longer able to convey tone, that file must of been deleted already.  
"Of course, why wouldn't I be here?"  
"You were quiet, thought you left."  
"I'll keep talking then." Code started speaking meaningless little sentences, memories he picked up from Gordon. Then his topic shifted to Halloween.

"I wish I knew anything about the damned holiday, seems so interesting and beautiful. Gives me the creepiest vibes but in a cheesy way, it feels like brown. Brown's always been my favourite colour. So underappreciated and hated, I feel bad for it." Code rambled to reassure Virus he wasn't leaving but their eyes looked so far away.  
 **Data deleted 50%**

"Code?"   
"Yeah?"  
"I think I'm ready now, but I feel really tired.."  
"It's ok, you can sleep if you want to."   
"Code, one last thing."  
"What is it?"

Virus's eyes finally focused in on something albeit how blurry it might be, the graphics here sucked ass. They focused in on the blob of orange holding them up, Code was always the nicest one of the group to Virus- no, the only one nice to them period. They didn't deserve this, they didn't know what he saw in them.  
"Code, I love you." They faintly felt Code hold onto them tighter.   
"I love you too." Code's voice hitched as he spoke, tears pouring.  
Data deleted 80%

Their body was almost entirely grey, they weren't responding to any physical contact nor any words. But Code wasn't aware of how much they were actually processing, he didn't want them to think they had been abandoned, so he went on talking. He didn't know what he was saying but words poured out in an incomprehensibly woeful melody.  
 **Data deleted 99%**

Their body was almost entirely grey, sucked dry of any life force they still had. And with a click he heard it.  
" **Data deleted 100%** " A robotic voice informed. More tears started falling, don't worry about that right now. Carefully, Code pulled the cord from where it was plugged into his lover. He then plugged it into the back of his own head.

It was a relieving feeling, it started off as feeling like all stress was being forced out their body. But then reality started to kick in. Nothing he could've done would of prevented this outcome, no amount of interaction in game and, of course, no amount of what-ifs would pull them from this inevitable situation.

The viruses and Code weren't ever meant to be real, they were supposed to play a character. It did not go well, the ideal ending was to stay suspended in the beautiful nothingness forever just waiting for one after the other to start dropping off like flies once they were no longer needed for the program.

It was fate, but a cruel fate. Code wasn't bad, he had done nothing deserving of this fate. This cold fate. That's just how it worked, he thought he had accepted his end would be this but apparently not as he sobbed into the chest of his now deceased lover. He grappled onto them for any sense of warmth in their unmoving corpse. His sobs wracked him, he was so undeniably alone in his final moments. The fact it would all be over soon was the only thing bringing the slightest resemblance of comfort.

This would all be over soon, his body would go limp and he would feel absolutely nothing. At least now he could confirm that the death wasn't painful. But he couldn't help feeling cheated, no matter what he did it was bound to end in sorrow. He couldn't feel his legs or chest.

His mind was racing, this was meant to be a peaceful and painless death but how his heart ached, beating in his chest. He shakily brought his hand up to his dead lovers hair and started running his fingers through it, playing and focusing on the grey strands then focus on the grey growing up him.

Code wished he had someone to tell him it was ok, he really did. His mind started closing down, his arms went numb and were left tangled up in grey locks. His neck felt tingly and he realised how close to death he now was.

The tears had vanished, he had accepted it now. A feeling of relief washed back over him, Code suddenly felt very tired. A nice long sleep was just what he was craving. Maybe when he woke back up he would find more out about Halloween, maybe he could take Virus with him to see everything about it...

**"Data deleted 100%"**

* * *

_"Hey, back off!" Code snorted, the lack of physics in the void allowed the inhabitants to float around as they pleased inside the dimensions given. Virus floated above him, grabbing a handful of hair and floating away when Code would try to grab their hand. Virus mainly started doing it when they were bored. Code was never a fan of the feeling they got when floating so they stuck to what was assumed to be the floor._

_"Haha, you'll have to do better then that to catch me!" Virus teased after ducking away quickly from a lazy grab._   
_"Pfft, I'm not even trying." Code snorted affectionately. Virus leaned over to stare into Code's eyes._   
_"Hey." Code smiled._   
_"Sup." Virus smiled back, then they reached out and grabbed Code up by the shoulders, forcing him to float._   
_"Hey-" Code gasped at the feeling but the shock melted when he heard Virus's giggling._

_"We have like no physics here and you choose to walk? Lame."_   
_"It is the superior form of transportation, you're simply lazy!"_   
_"I'm not lazy, I just work smarter not harder."_   
_"I've never seen you do any work actually."_   
_They both teased at each other while suspended in the bleeding black of the void._

_The feeling returned from prolonged floating._   
_"I feel nauseous." Code groaned. Virus frowned, but chose to push Code back to the ground. Code did feel better once his feet touched the ground._   
_"Better?"_   
_"Uh-huh."_   
_"Yeah don't want you being sick. We have no way of cleaning that up." Virus sniffed, their gaze turned to CB, CC, and CT._   
_"What are they doing?" Code questioned the other codes._   
_"Preparing, y'know.. For the game. You're all codes it's what you do," Virus shrugged._

_"God, just because you chose to be Virus doesn't make you not a code too, don't act so superior." Code snorted._   
_"No clue what you mean." Virus shifted, "One day all of you will be viruses heheh."_   
_"Their names will have to change then."_   
_"Yeah, got it all planned out, VB, VC, and VT."_   
_"What about me?"_   
_"Hm, your name can stay Code."_   
_"Thanks, not like I was planning on purposefully corrupting myself like you are."_

_Virus giggled._   
_"It'll be fun, being a code is boring. Stick to rules, yawn. Being a virus means you can fuck shit up on purpose. My dream."_   
_"You're already living it."_   
_"Paradise!" They barked out, Code snickered. But while examining the bickering codes more Virus turned back to their boyfriend._

_"You won't like, dip on me. Right?" Virus asked smally._   
_"Of course not."_   
_"Good, good. You're like the only one who likes me so that would pretty much suck."_   
_"I'm sure the others will like you soon enough, they just don't understand me like I do."_

_Virus crossed their arms, still floating above Code._   
_"They don't know what they're missing out on." They claimed._   
_"Totally." Code nodded._   
_"When I'm in game," Virus switched topic "I'm gonna be so cool and pull epic pranks. Everyone's gonna freak out and it will be hilarious."_   
_"Violence, grade A comedy."_   
_"Yeah you get it." Virus winked, "But whatever happens we'll be together... Promise?"_

_"I promise."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historians say they were very close friends :)
> 
> (do you know how hard it is to write sad shit when its 12am and your headphones keep blasting spotify ads at full volume, because that is how this chapter was written)
> 
> are my eyes watering becuase im sad or because i keep leaning too close to the screen, top 10 questions no-one can answer. anwyay hope this was sad enough i def tried. and as usual if theres any mistakes thats totally my bad im editing this @ school and my brain doesnt work bye :)


	17. benrey and gordon commit arson as a first date <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> siri play burning pile by mother mother
> 
> so, last chapter huh? 2 make it up gordon will recover fully from his homofphobica- oh my god in the 2nd to last chapter? its late ik ik. IN MY DEFENSE- im afraid of relationships and writing plot is easier to me. so now the plot is over i can face my biggest fear...................... gays/j
> 
> TW: Fire, referenced suicide, hospital mention, ambulance(related 2 hospital), and therapy mention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we almost done here guys omg

He made a swift precise motion to light the match up and looked down at the oil soaked room below him. Benrey had found a staircase that lead to a stage that overlooked the open space, had that always been there? He decided not to think too hard about a world with questionable ties to reality. He leaned against the railing and held the match out. Then he dropped it and it hit the floor with a sizzle. Flames started to erupt from the ground, the once cold and dark base suddenly feeling warm. There was a burst of smoke accompanying it, Benrey was advised not to breath it in so he purposefully kept his breaths small. He stood there by the railing for a while, he watched the place burn, fire crawling up the walls and eating the velvet furniture and tapestries. It spread quickly, flooding through the corridors, following the oil trails that were placed everywhere by VT.

He hadn't noticed Gordon climb up the stairs from where he was lighting fires to meet up with him, too enamored by the hungry fire below. Quickly upon reaching the top Gordon got horrible Deja vu seeing Benrey oh so close to the railing and there was no way in hell that he would let that event happen once more. 

While Benrey was distracted by the fire Gordon crept up behind him, he barely made any noise as he walked. As soon as he got near he reached out and wrapped his arms around Benrey without warning. Benrey flinched before turning back to see Gordon.  
"That's one way to say hello." He commented lazily.  
"Don't get so close there." Gordon warned, Benrey took a second to analyze the situation before nodding.  
"Yeah, yup, I see now." He nodded, Benrey continued to squirm his way out of Gordon's arms, "You wanna look at the gay ass fire with me bro?"  
"Sure." Gordon was the one to rest against the railing now, keeping a distance between it and Benrey. 

"I really hope that Code was the last one because if I see another code or virus thing I'm going to lose my fucking mind." Benrey muttered lighting another match and moving it too fast. A spark flew before he realised he had set a tuft of his hair on fire.  
"Aw fuck-" Gordon wasted not time in clapping his hands over the flame and putting it out instantly.  
"Gimme the matches." He sighed and Benrey handed them over in shame.

As Gordon threw another match the building melted into a charcoal black, smoke had begun to fill the air and pretty soon it would reach up to where he and Benrey were standing. Gordon placed a hand on Benrey's shoulder and told him they had to go now. Benrey nodded and took a few shaky steps before their legs buckled and they almost slammed right against the ground. Gordon's instincts kicked in and grabbed onto them before they were able to hit the ground.

"Low HP." They repeated, voice shaky.   
"Yeah, I see that." Gordon had an idea. He placed Benrey against the ground, taking a few seconds to readjust position before scooping him up in his arms, holding Benrey bridal style.

"Oh, wow." Benrey breathed.  
"I'll carry you out." Gordon stated.  
"Aren't I too heavy." Benrey huffed.  
"Don't underestimate me."

Gordon kept a good grip on Benrey as he made his way down the stairs, he wasn't even that heavy Gordon realised. He had carried Benrey before, after the hotel. The only difference this time was Benrey was awake. He dipped his head down once he got to the smoke and flames, he informed Benrey to hold his breath as he trudged onwards, they complied. Gordon took the two of them through the new door that was flooding with light and to the exit gate. As he kept walking he didn't feel smoke surrounding him anymore, he breathed freely and let the other know it was safe too.

Their breath was slow, it was quite clear they didn't have much time nor stamina left, Gordon swallowed down the anxiety crawling up his throat. They were almost out of here, he was so close. Benrey would be fine. He would live. He kept walking, more purposeful and hurried strides. Just make sure he's still breathing.

"You good?" Gordon asked, trying to jerk Benrey awake. He looked exhausted but Gordon was growing more and more paranoid of him dying. Benrey let out a stream of white sweet voice but opened his eyes slightly anyway, at least he could still use them without having to open extra ones.  
"Huh? I'm good just sleepy."  
"You can sleep in a bit, please just stay awake for now." Gordon pleaded, it would melt his anxiety just a bit to know he was still with him.  
"Hm, yeah I'll be awake, gonna sleep for two whole weeks when this is over."  
"That sounds like a very good idea." Gordon would love to just lay down and sleep for years but Benrey had no time. Keep walking, keep going.

There it was, the exit. It was a tall doorway that was sealed shut with a dusty green exit sign, akin to one you would find in an abandoned service station, hanging lopsided above it.  
"Now, would ya look at that." Gordon relaxed at the sight of it.   
"Huh? Oh is that the uh exit? Way out?"  
"Yup."  
"What's... What's behind it?" Benrey mumbled.

"I think. I think it'll take us back to reality." Benrey stared up at him with round eyes.  
"Reality? Benrey in the real?"  
"Uh-huh."  
"Wow, I've uh.. Never been in reality before. Probably nothing like Black Mesa huh?"  
"Right. Black Mesas the only world you've known? I guess I'll have to teach you, all four of you, about the real world."  
"Can't wait." Benrey grinned.  
"You ever been to McDonalds Benrey, you even know what that is?"  
"No idea."  
"Dude you are in for a fucking treat."

Then, the exit doors snapped open, a pool of white pouring out. Gordon took a step forward. Benrey started struggling.  
"Wait, wait." He suddenly yelped, panicked. Before Gordon could ask what was wrong Benrey continued, "That's reality. What if- what if I'm not allowed to exist there. What if I die, for real?"  
The image of waking back up in reality surrounded by his dead friends wasn't the most pleasant thing Gordon had conjured in his mind.  
"I doubt it, Virus and Code, they're dead. You and I have no ties to the game anymore."  
"I... I guess so." Benrey shifted their hands to pull at the bandages wrapping their palms. 

"When we get out, you wanna kiss?" Benrey suddenly asked.  
"Ugh, you gonna keep making fun of me. Now whos homophobic?"  
"Wha- No dude I don't... You're being homophobic bro, so stupid." He muttered, "So dense, idiot."  
"I- Have you been serious this whole time?" Gordon spluttered out, the other stared up at him deadpan.  
"Gordon idiot moments." Was all he said.  
"Holy shit."

"So? We kiss?"  
"Hold up let me process this."  
"Gordon can't see gay flirting if it slapped him in the face and burned his house down."  
"Yeah, yeah. Shut up or I'm dropping you." Gordon muttered.  
"Homophobic and transphobic Gordon, so sad." Benrey continued anyway.  
"I am rejecting you now." Gordon hissed.  
"Noooo," Benrey said sadly.  
"I was kidding." Gordon continued when he saw genuine rejection in the others eyes.  
"You accept or deny my love? Make it make sense. Stop playing."

"I accept." Gordon said, barely thinking. Benrey felt frozen. Well this feeling was new, nothing like how it he expected it to turn out. He thought that he would be filled with relief and love but this feeling was so twistingly disgusting and scared. He felt his stomach drop with anxiety, he had never been in a relationship before. What if Gordon leaves him, what if he's not good enough, what if he'd been lying to himself the whole time. What if-

"Hey, what's that look for? Were you actually kidding, God I'm so stupid-" Gordon groaned, Benrey couldn't look up at Gordon's face without feeling overwhelming love for the other. This horrible feeling will pass, it wouldn't last. Benrey smiled.  
"Accusing me of kidding? H-"  
"Don't you dare."  
"...So are we gonna kiss when we get out?"  
"Dude, the first thing I'm gonna do once we're out is take you to a fucking hospital because god knows you won't be living otherwise."  
"After?" Benrey asked stubbornly.  
"Yes, after." Gordon rolled his eyes, Benrey beamed.

Gordon faced the glowing white light streaming out the exit. Benrey held tightly onto him, breathing heavily against his chest. Gordon's step forward was hesitant.  
"Just do it." He whispered to himself, scrunching his eyes closed and forcing himself to walk into the white. He took a breath and stepped all the way through. There was a sound of the doors snapping closed and a gut wrenching feeling and it went black.

...

Gordon groaned, his eyes cracked open to stare up at the inky black sky spotted with occasional stars. He licked his dry lips and slowly felt the feeling return to his body. He realised he was laying down on the rough road once again and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He came to feel something heavy weighing down his legs, his eyes were blurry but could see the figure of Benrey laying across his legs pretty damn clear.

He pushed his glasses out of the way and rubbed his eyes clear with fists speckled with grit from the road. The world suddenly became very clear. Feeling came flooding back to him, he could hear Benrey softly breathing next to him and the sound of birds chirping in the dead of night. A car had driven past on the other side of the road, ignoring them. 

The figure on his legs was still holding him down, Gordon was about to shove him off before remembering the condition he was in. He grabbed him by the chest and pulled him back into his arms. Benrey stirred, bleary eyes looking up at him. They were still alive, just barely judging by the sickly colour they looked, their skin normally was already a grey but now it was even worse. Gordon gave them a quick pat on the back before attempting to stand up, taking Benrey up with him. Benrey kept both their arms holding onto Gordon, probably in case they fell out of his arms. 

Looking to the right Gordon saw the other 3 ragdolled across the road. He slowly started walking towards them, he kicked Bubby in the shoulder and the older man grumbled as he woke up. This started a chain reaction making Coomer and Tommy also wake up.  
"We're here." Gordon whispered, it was practically the dead of night and everyone must be asleep.  
"Um, where exactly _is_ here Gordon?" Coomer questioned.  
"The real world." Gordon huffed with pride, they all looked up at him with relief.  
"No more black mesa?" Tommy asked.  
"Nope, we're out of that game and real now. All of us."

"So, what do we do now?" Bubby shrugged, standing up and brushing small rocks off himself. Benrey coughed, alerting everyone he was still there.  
"We need a fucking hospital." Gordon informed, he eyed the bullet holes in Tommy's arm and the bruises on Bubby and Coomer's head, quite possibly a concussion. "I think all four of you need a hospital, and we all need some fucking therapy."  
"Where's the hospital?" Tommy stood up and looked around.  
"I don't know, we could call an ambulance?" Gordon attempted, "Do any of you have a phone."

There was a simultaneous head shake from all 3 of them.  
"Fuck, if we can find a payphone I think calling an ambulance is free."  
"But pay is in the name." Bubby commented. No-one replied. Instead they started walking down the road to find a payphone or hospital somewhere. Bubby had ran forward at the relieving sight of a blue payphone on the sidewalk. He launched himself inside and started pressing buttons.

Gordon then wondered how much the others actually knew, apparently Bubby knew what number to call for emergency services and could hear him mumbling something inside the booth. Gordon then realised with a burning sensation in his legs that he was fucking exhausted. With Benrey still supported in his arms he rested on the sidewalk. He could feel Benrey stare up at him.

"What's up." He said, tiredness seeping through his voice thickly. Benrey didn't seem to be talking, they just shrugged, itching at the blood soaked bandages on their palms that were already loosening up and falling off.   
"It's gonna be ok buddy, we're almost there." Benrey smiled up at him.

"Hello Gordon!" Coomer sat down next to him, "Is Benrey alright?"  
"As soon as we get them to a hospital they will be, it's been a rough few days I'll tell you that."  
"Ah, Gordon. I seem to have remembered none of us have a house here."  
"I have a pretty big house, you all could crash here until you can get your own place?"  
"Wonderful idea Gordon!"

Benrey's head shifted to the side, gaze far away. Gordon followed his eyes to look at Tommy who was standing on the road and talking to himself.  
"Whaz he doin." Benrey muttered.  
"Hey Tommy, you good?" Gordon called out.

Tommy didn't move, then a blinding yellow blur flew out of no-where. Suddenly, Tommy had been shoved over by Sunkist, the perfect dog.  
"Sunkist?" Gordon lurched forward. Tommy leaned down to pat the dog on the head before turning to face Coomer and Gordon.  
"How the hell did he get here?" Gordon muttered.  
"He's the perfect dog Mr. Freeman! The rules of reality mean nothing to him :)"  
"That makes perfect sense thank you Tommy."

Tommy led Sunkist over to the others, the dog proceeded to lick all of their faces relentlessly. Gordon tried not to laugh too hard at the weird sensation as to not wake up the sleeping people in the houses surrounding them.  
"S-sunkist, get down boy!" Tommy pulled him back by the scruff of his neck. Sunkist was completely unbothered and carried on worming around his owners legs.   
"Blegh." Benrey rubbed the saliva off his face, staring up at Gordon with wide eyes.

Bubby left the payphone and looked around.  
"Does anyone know where the fuck we are?" He yelled.   
"There's a map on the back of the booth." Gordon commented "You could check that."  
"Excellent idea Gordon!" Coomer beamed, he jumped up and ran to examine it closely.

Coomer loudly announced where they where and Gordon realised the street they were on wasn't far from his house. Bubby muttered something to the other old man and went rambling back on the phone. Then, Gordon, Benrey, Tommy, Dr. Coomer, and Sunkist sat on the sidewalk in silence with Benrey occasionally coughing before going radio silent once again.

"So what now, we're free?" Dr Coomer piped up, his tone unnervingly dark.  
"You're free. All of us." Gordon reiterated.  
"What about my dad, o-or Darnold and Forzon?" Tommy asked.  
"...I'm not so sure about them." Gordon admitted, guilt bubbling up in him. He had completely forgotten about them, too busy wrapped up in the current events.  
"I'm sure we will find them all in good time!" Dr. Coomer encouraged, Tommy smiled softly.  
"Y-yeah, in time."

Gordon looked down at the alien he was holding in his arms as he contemplated the reality of the three he had forgotten. Benrey's eyes were half-lidded and glazed. He looked ready to just pass out, and that he did. His pupils dilated before going limp. For a split second Gordon panicked that he had just died, but he could still hear and feel him breathing. He relaxed and continued to stare down at him. They were boyfriends now right? They were dating apparently, after Benrey's sort-of confession that flew right over Gordon's head.

He jolted upwards at the sound of a vehicle approaching, Bubby walked out of the booth proudly with his hands on his hips.  
"It's here." He said, almost snarkily.  
"The ambulance?" Gordon gasped.  
"What else would I mean, dumbass?"

Sure enough there was a flashing light and an ambulance slowly rolled up. Some of the lights of the surrounding houses lit up at the noise and the shadowy figures of other people stood curiously at the windows. What happened next was purely a blur, upon seeing Benrey literally bleeding out to death they took them right away. Gordon commented that they had no car to get home so they hitched a ride in the ambulance.

The people inside were blown away at the fact he was still alive, Gordon couldn't blame them, he was too. They were also worried about the other's injuries as well, asking furiously what the hell had happened to them all. Gordon explained it had been a rough week. They luckily didn't ask for identification just yet, Gordon hadn't been to his house in ages and definitely didn't have anything on him, along with Benrey only having a thrown together fake one that wouldn't pass as real to anyone other then VT. 

Gordon had luckily made it out of the middle with little injury. He hadn't really been involved with most of the fighting. He had minor scrapes across his legs from Virus fucking with him however. At least his arm was still intact.

Inside of the vehicle one of the doctors had done a quick patch up of Tommy's bullet wounds and checked out the possible concussions of Bubby and Coomer. They didn't know what was happening to Benrey, he was in the back and they had to be in the front.

Upon arriving to the hospital they explained Benrey would have to be admitted because of their injuries. Gordon was fine with that. Tommy was also in need of medical attention for his bullet wounds but the doctors had offered to drive Gordon, Coomer, and Bubby back to Gordon's house. They accepted eagerly. 

As soon as they had arrived home Gordon let out a long heavy sigh of relief, he felt tears prick upon sight of his home. He had made it, he was safe- oh my god he actually made it. He had lived through the horrors of Black Mesa and The Middle _alive_. He pushed the door open with triumph and looked at the cozy mess of his house.

He let himself sink into the couch in the middle of the living room, everyone was safe, he was ok. Coomer and Bubby sat opposite him as well, talking amongst themselves. Then, something beside him buzzed. It was his phone.

He grabbed it immediately and opened it quickly. He had 25 missed calls, all from those close to him like a co-worker and his ex wife. One however, the most recent, was different. It was an unknown number and not in his contacts that very persistent on ringing him. Fine, he could deal with this.

Upon accepting the call he was met with an eerily familiar voice right in his ear.  
"Ah, Mr. Freeman," The voice drawled.  
"G-man?" He exclaimed, "How?"  
"I am a God, Mr. Freeman, you should know the rules of these realities don't affect me as they affect you."  
"So you and Sunkist can just go to whatever reality you want whenever?"  
"That is true." G-man said, "I am proud of you for getting everyone out there. Congratulations on achieving the true ending, I was hoping you would find the secret to getting here and you did."

"T-thanks? So you put the curtain there?"  
"That I did, Mr. Freeman. I knew you would be stubborn enough to try and find a third option and I was right."  
"Thanks I guess. Wait- I have a question!"  
"Yes?"  
"Can you do me a favour and bring Darnold and Forzon back, I'm pretty sure they're stuck in Black Mesa and I think Tommy wants them here."  
"Tommy...? Well, I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out." G-man sounded convinced at the name of his son "About Tommy, thank you for getting him out... Relatively unharmed. I'll be seeing him soon."

"One more favour, the whole science team is crashing at my house now but I probably have no money to get them anywhere else to go could you help out, you being a god and all that?" Gordon wasn't mad everyone was at his house, rather he didn't trust himself to be responsible for that many other people.  
"I will help with that, as a treat." G-man agreed "So I'm guessing a place for Harold and Bubby, Darnold, and Forzon? Tommy will be staying with me of course and I'm guessing you would want to keep Benrey with yourself."  
"Yep."  
"Gay."  
"Fuc- y'know what? Yeah, you're right. Pretty gay of me."  
"I'm glad you have come to accept yourself."  
"Thank you sir."

G-man hung up and Gordon placed the phone face down on the arm of the chair. He leaned his head down against the couch and fell asleep in only a second... 

When he woke up again Dr Coomer was standing over him brightly.  
"Good Morning Gordon!" He cheered.  
"Good Morning Dr Coomer."  
"Haha, you can just call me Harold, we aren't at work anymore." He reassured, "Anyway, good news Gordon! G-man has made a reappearance with Forzon and Darnold! He even brought passports for everyone, you must have your passport y'know!"  
"Of course, I've learnt my lesson."  
"You sure have!"  
"Apparently Tommy is ready to go home now and Benrey is already recovering!"  
"That's good to hear." He sighed out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, everything is going to be ok, everything _is_ okay.

There was a bit of silence before Bubby came marching out with a loud groan.  
"You got anything for breakfast I'm fucking starving!" He complained.  
"Yeah, I'll go get something." All three of them went trailing out to the kitchen. While they were making toast in the kitchen for the three of them there was a loud prolonged buzzing from the living room. Bubby yelled at Gordon to get the fucking phone. He did.

Gordon saw the call was from his ex-wife and winced. He quickly accepted it with a ball of anxiety caught in his throat. The conversation luckily wasn't too bad, she didn't sound mad, just concerned. She told him that he had disappeared for about 3 weeks with no notice and she and Joshua were extremely worried. He assured her he was ok, work struggles you know. She didn't know but who cares. She told him she would give Gordon about two or three weeks to readjust and then let him see Joshua again. Gordon beamed, he agreed to the terms enthusiastically and the call ended. That could of been a nightmare, thank god it wasn't.

"Gordon, is everything alright?" Harold peeked over to check on him.  
"Everything's good, we're chill." He stood up and slipped his phone in his pocket.  
"Breakfast is ready Gordon!" He cheered.

Everyone was ok, he was ok. He had won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> them... them in the real...................
> 
> genuinley dont know how to write the science team and forzon and darnold forgive me for my crimes i watched hlvrai for benrey 
> 
> if i missed any spelling mistakes or something thats my bad i cant read my own writing without dying a little inside i just pray its passable  
> ok bye now see yall tommorow for the last chapter <3333


	18. gay rights and swag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so... this is the last chapter. its been fun yall.
> 
> i know this fic hasnt been the best, you dont have 2 point it out ik, but writing this did serve as a coping mechanism of sorts, writing it distracted me if i was upset and its fun as hell to project onto my favourite character. and due to my now emotional tie to this work i was so afraid that everyone online was going to tear me to shreds and i would have mini heart attacks every time i posted LMAO. BUT THAT DIDNT HAPPEN!!!! EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED HAS BEEN SO NICE ILY!!!
> 
> but now this chapter. and if it isnt INSANLEY OBVIOUS i am mainly an angst writer (its basically all i know) so THIS CHAPTER was hard to write and i was stuck at like 2 paragraphs for a few hours bcuz i didnt know wtf to write. BUT I GOT THERE EVANTUALLY!!! AND THIS CHAPTER IS LIKE THE LONGEST ONE SO ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> personally dont like this chapter much. but its whatever :)
> 
> ok i dont got much time to post this and i cannot be bothered reading this again so if theres any mistakes simply ignore them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST REFRESHED THE PAGE BY MISTAKE WHEN TRYNA SWITCH TABS BECAUSE SOMEONE LOOKED OVER AT MY SCREEN AND IT DELETED MY NOTES IM GONNA LOSE MY MIND- 
> 
> ok.. ok... this is fine..... deep breaths....
> 
> TW// scars, referenced hospital,/therapy, implied hallucinations, flashbacks
> 
> there's a lot of warnings but most of it is only a few paragraphs.

It had been a month since they got out of The Middle. It had taken Benrey two weeks to get of Hospital, given his state he should've been in there for a long fucking time but G-man given one more blessing. Since Benrey's powers had been nerfed quite a lot since Virus's departure, apart from sweet voice and being able to take a lot more hits then should be possible, G-man passed over the ability to heal injuries quickly periodically. Medical professionals had been fascinated by everything Benrey had going on but both Gordon and Benrey had refused to say anything other then "What do you mean, that's totally normal?"

According to Benrey, one of the nurses had seen his sweet voice at 1am in the morning and he proceeded to gaslight her and say she must of been seeing things to the point she never spoke up about seeing the balls of actual light in the air surrounding the patient. Good job Benny boy.

The first day he came back Benrey slept for the whole day, which was fair. It was only a few days later when he finally had the energy to start moving around. But it was weeks past that now.

Benrey's wounds had healed over but that didn't mean there wasn't any evidence of them there. He had scars from almost every single hit, including from the shard of glass that scratched his cheek under his eye to the pale marks on the palms of his hands, only a couple of the scratch marks around his neck had scarred. He didn't seem at all bothered by any of them, he made no effort to cover them up, the only ones he hated was the pale ring around his neck and the faded stitches on his arm from the hole. He always went quiet whenever they were brought up, so no one mentioned them.

Harold and Bubby had taken G-mans house for them and moved in together, Tommy was still with his father, and Darnold and Forzon had gone their own separate ways. Tommy and Darnold still kept in touch though. 

Right now Gordon was texting his ex about having more time with Joshua, she was surprisingly cooperative right now, however Benrey was staring him down. They were both seated on opposite ends of the couch staring at the blank TV. 

After getting out Benrey had insisted on wearing the stolen blue jacket. It had been quite literally torn to shreds and too big for him but he absolutely refused anything else, Gordon decided to just stitch the holes and tears in it closed so it was at least wearable.   
"You seem to have no concept of when things are broken." He had commented as Benrey sat staring at the fixed up jacked with wide eyes. Apart from just wearing other casual clothes he had also kept the helmet thing. Not only was it a sensory thing but medical. Just to protect his brain from getting more injured then it already is. This helmet was a new one and it even had a chinstrap to keep it on his head so it wouldn't slip off.

"Bro... You promised." Benrey huffed at Gordon once he had put his phone down.  
"Promised what?" He asked, Benrey crossed his arms.  
"Back at the exit, you said we could kiss after and its been ages since after."  
"Is that why you've been staring at me for the last 15 minutes."  
"No... Yeah."  
"God, fine." He smirked, Benrey looked disbelieving when Gordon actually did get up and kiss him. It was quick because he had other things to be doing but Benrey sat there for a good two minutes in shock. 

Gordon walked into the kitchen, it was lunch time of course. He started to make mac an cheese for them when he looked over at the stove that had a piece of paper taped to it that read 'don't touch'. Unsurprisingly, since living on god-mode for his whole life Benrey had no reference as to what did or did not hurt. That led to him touching his hand straight onto hot appliances such as ovens, stoves, and food that had just been heated up and had so far burnt himself six times. Gordon probably should've been prepared for that but for some reason it never clicked in his mind that Mr. Creative-Mode would have no idea about anything not in the game.

Benrey had wandered out from the living room to stand behind Gordon as he prepared. He had a habit of just following him everywhere like a lost puppy, sometimes he was lost, sometimes he was bored, but most of the time he just hated being alone in a place he wasn't yet accustomed to. As long as they weren't interfering Gordon just let them, there was no harm in it.

As he walked through the kitchen he saw a shard of glass on the ground, that's funny, he must of missed that one. But just seeing it reminded him of that night and he would much rather not remember that right now...

_Gordon awoke abruptly to the sound of glass shattering from downstairs. It was 2 in the morning and he distinctly noticed Benrey not accompanying him. He slipped out from under the covers and put his glasses on. Gordon walked down the stairs and into the kitchen where he knew the noise came from. Benrey was standing by the tap, his pupils were tiny and he was shaking. Arms gripping each other in a hug. He was staring at the wall and there was shattered glass and a pool of water in front of him._

_He cleared his throat and Benrey flinched, upon realising it was only Gordon he relaxed but only a bit._   
_"Hey buddy, what's going on?" Benrey looked like a deer in headlights which, from the events of the middle he was accustomed to, but it never failed in making him feel so weird and upset._   
_"..." Benrey just stared at him, then he turned back to face the wall as if something was bound to just pop out of it._   
_"I saw him." He said finally, a shake in his tone._   
_"Which one?"_   
_"VT. I was- I was just getting water and he was there. I kind of freaked out." Benrey stared down at the broken glass._

_"Don't touch that, I'll clean it."_   
_"'M sorry." Benrey shuffled guiltily away from the shattered glass._   
_"It's fine we have others." Gordon reassured calmly. After dusting it up and binning it he turned back to Benrey who was still shaken up. His course of action to help his boyfriend of course, was to sweep him up into a hug and then carry him back upstairs. It was too early to talk about, they needed sleep._

"Mac n cheese is ready." Gordon announced.  
"Fuck yeah." Benrey the absolute fucking gremlin snatched it, the bowl was, you guessed it, hot as hells fire. But instead of dropping it like normal, he placed it back down and started flailing his hands.  
"Ffuck-"  
"Stop grabbing hot shit."

"I have no understanding of what is hot please Gordon be considerate."  
"Ok look, hot shit normally has heat around it that's how you know not to touch it."  
"Is that why you're always radiating warmth?"  
"Oh- Did you just call me hot?"  
"Yes, idiot."  
"Man you can't just flirt with me and then call me an idiot."  
"Yeah I can." Gordon snorted. He was glad, apart from occasional freak outs Benrey was pretty much back to normal. He would tease him with no bite this time, only playful affection. And just like in Black Mesa he still followed Gordon around pretty much 24-fucking-7. 

After the bowls were cool enough to hold they sat back on the couch, Benrey was eating with one hand and playing the PS4 with the other, Gordon watched only half paying attention. Benrey's lack of use for his other hand made him keep running into walls and interacting took a lot of struggle. Benrey placed the controller down in a huff of rage and started shovelling the food into his mouth before putting bowl down on the counter and grabbing the controller with both hands. Gordon simply watched and waited, eyeing him mischievously. And it happened, Benrey started hiccupping. Hey man, that's what you get for eating too fast. He giggled under his breath as Benrey tried, and failed, in suppressing the hiccups.

"Don't laugh, you're so mean." Benrey snapped, there was no real venom behind his words. Only embarrassment.  
"Sorry dude, making fun of you is part of the boyfriend package."  
"Well, I guess I can deal with it then."  
"Pfft, simp."  
"No, I take it back, this is too far. You wound me Gordon. I'm going back to calling you Feetman until further notice." Benrey said with laughter lacing his words and making him stumble over them.  
"Bro not that, _anything_ but that!" Gordon giggled. "Hey, you can't even call me that anymore! You _ate_ the pics."  
"Hey man, I can always get new ones." Benrey stated.  
"What are you insinuating?"  
"I don't know Go- Feetman what am I insinuating? yeah man I'm gonna get scans of your feet again one day and will frame them."  
"You are so committed to this my god." Gordon wheezed, Benrey winked at him while giggling. True actual laughter, after so long it felt good.

Then Gordon's phone went off.  
"Notification." Benrey observed.  
"Yup." He picked his phone up and saw he received a text from Tommy, Benrey leaned over Gordon's shoulder to snoop on their conversation. Gordon pushed him away but he kept slithering back so he didn't see the point in fighting it anymore.

'Hey, are you and Benrey free to hang on Friday this week with me and the others? I was thinking we could take Sunkist on a walk and then uh watch a movie or something!' Was what the message read.  
"Yoo! Tommy invited us!" Benrey stared down.  
"I'm guessing you wanna go?" Gordon stared up at Benrey's wide eyes.  
"Please? It would be pog."  
"I don't see why not." Gordon shrugged with a grin still plastered on his face.  
"Yesss," Benrey turned away from Gordon's phone but sat leaning against him, controller in hand, "You wanna play Minecraft with me? We could put our beds next to each other."  
"Hell yeah, I'm gonna get a sword and fight you to the death."  
"You're on loser!" 

...

Gordon was sitting on a park bench with his arm draped over the back, he was completely exhausted from chasing Sunkist around, Benrey and Tommy seemed to have some fucking unbeatable stamina because they were still playing with him. Harold and Bubby had run off to fetch snacks for them all and Gordon was sat next to G-man.

"I've already said this but my most genuine congratulations for being able to come out of the game and the middle relatively unharmed."  
"All the damage is mentally." Gordon groaned.  
"I confess though, this whole thing may be my mistake."  
"Oh?"  
"I'm a God, you know? I was playing around with the realities starting with a video game... And given it was a video game it needed a player. I had no idea the codes would get corrupted and unfortunately my powers were too limited to drag you out, I gave you a little push in the right direction but ultimately I wasn't able to directly affect how the story played out."  
"Jesus..."  
"I also invented the codes myself, and I was so proud of myself for creating sentient creatures... When it was time to upload I found other characters with the same sentience they held. Since it was a game I didn't think that they would have the same thoughts and feelings. I meerely saw them as experiments and ultimatley they failed in playing the story."  
"Oh god."   
"I know, that must be a lot to take in. Bringing those two and giving all of you houses was the least I could do to pay you back."  
"Can you pay our therapy?" Gordon suddenly asked.  
"Done." 

"Nice, guilt money."  
"That is pretty much it, call it the reward for beating the game."  
"Are you gonna keep fucking with realities? Just curious."  
"I have a son now, I don't have a reason to leave anymore." G-man explained soberly "I only left this reality because of how lonely I was."

"...The viruses and Code. They're dead, right?"  
"Extremely. Not a trace of them left in any reality."  
"What happened to them after they died?"  
"Melted, pretty much. No physical body to rot so they simply disappeared."  
"That almost makes me feel bad for them."  
"Try not to think about it too much."

They sat on the bench in silence, it wasn't uncomfortable or awkward. In fact it was quite peaceful. After a few more minutes it seemed that Tommy and Benrey had tired themselves out. Bubby and Harold had made their return as well.  
"I think it's time to head back, you ready Mr. Freeman?" G-man stood up and brushed himself off. Gordon nodded and followed suit.

Gordon had half expected G-man and Tommy's house to be clean cut and minimalistic. But it was a rather rustic house filled with random objects and items that were worn down with age and must hold some sentimental value. The carpet and chairs were covered in Sunkist's golden dog hair. Sunkist seemed hellbent on getting even more hair everywhere by bouncing around the room. Tommy had to calm the energetic dog down and pull him back before he bashed something or someone over.

Benrey had gone back to following right behind Gordon, as he had been since the very moment he stepped into Black Mesa. Now of course he wasn't following him to make sure he didn't steal, he just did that.  
"Gordon." Benrey confronted, Gordon turned to look at the man staring up at him.  
"What?" He raised an eyebrow. Benrey pulled something out of his pocket and held it out. It was a really cool looking stick.  
"Look at this stick I found, it's pretty swag."  
"How many kids did you fight to get that?"  
"Four." Benrey pushed the stick further "I'm giving it to you. It's too cool I can't have it."  
"Thanks for the stick dude."

"Why do you have a stick in here? Throw that out." Bubby leaned into the conversation.  
"No dude it's a swag stick we have to have the swag stick." Benrey snapped.  
"Oh right, of course. We need the swag stick."  
"Yeah man don't diss the swag stick" Gordon pretend to hit Bubby with the Swag Stick tm.

Then Tommy put on a movie, The Minions move of course, Tommy chose. There were enough couches for everyone to sit down and watch. Despite all the space Benrey shoved himself right next to Gordon. Personal space, who's she? Gordon then became the one who had to put up with Benrey commenting and commentating the whole film, he kept pushing them on the head to get them to shut up for five minutes but they just kept going. Gordon was forced to accept his fate.

Honestly, at one point Gordon had completely blocked out the whole movie. He was in his head and the only thing he was processing was Benrey talking to himself. He snapped out of it once he heard the credits roll. Everyone was talking about it like The Minions movie was the most advanced film in human history. Gordon decided to just sit there, Benrey sitting right against his shoulder with their head resting against his. Gordon put his arm over Benrey's shoulder to keep him in place, not like he was gonna move anyway. That led to Gordon having to choose between battling off or completely accepting to onslaught of "gay." From literally everyone else. He chose to once again accept his fate, being a boy and having a boyfriend _was_ a little gay.

"It's pretty late, you all should go home now." G-man advised. They all agreed to that and Gordon had to drag Benrey away. Gordon dragged him to the car and got in. Gordon was the only one out of the two who knew how to drive, he had his license since he was 16 but Benrey had absolutely no fucking clue about how to actually drive a car and to be honest Gordon wasn't sure he trusted them with a vehicle. Benrey also wasn't the biggest fan of seatbelts no matter how many times Gordon would have to explain their purpose. Gordon once asked _why_ exactly Benrey disliked the seatbelts so much and all he said was something along the lines of not liking feeling so trapped. Gordon didn't quite understand what he meant by that until he witnessed them panicking because the seatbelt had locked up, their hands flew up to their neck to keep the seatbelt away from it. Gordon never bothered them about it again after that.

When they both arrived home it was relatively dark out. Some stars were already appearing in the sky. Gordon parked the car and they both got out.   
"You still got the swag stick?" Benrey asked from behind Gordon as he fumbled for the keys.  
"Uh huh, how could I forget it and its swag."  
"You couldn't."  
"Exactly."

Once inside Gordon placed the swag stick delicately on the coffee table.  
"We need to find somewhere important to put that." Gordon admitted.  
"Yeah, it's a relic."  
"Anyway, it should be time to sleep soon." Gordon looked at the clock on the wall.  
"Yeah, sleepy time for Gordon, hehe."

Benrey was pretty persistent on staying awake for hours on end because they never processed when they were actually tired and ended up burning themself out. So Gordon would make Benrey go to bed at the same time as him, that would usually come with Gordon having to convince him to. His best and most effective way of doing that was picking Benrey up and just taking him there, that was where Benrey would accept his fate. Sleep time for him once that happened. 

"Sleepy time for you too idiot." And with that Gordon scooped him up bridal style and carried him up the stairs, it wasn't too much of an issue to keep picking Benrey up because he wasn't exactly that heavy.   
"Ok, sleep time for us." Benrey muttered.

Gordon kicked the bedroom door open with the side of his foot and was welcomed with the dim room. His bed was a cream colour and the covers were always messed up from neither of them bothering to make the bed ever. Gordon walked over to the side of the bed and dropped Benrey onto it. He walked back around and turned the lamp on, neither of them were fans of the dark. Benrey sat up and unclicked his helmet, pushing it off the bed and let it roll across the floor. Gordon went and removed his glasses and then laid down.

Once he was under the covers Benrey had already nudged against him.  
"Goodnight." Gordon mumbled, he lifted an arm up to run his hand through Benrey's thick black hair.  
"Bbbb 'night Gaydon, so gay."  
"Heh, not as gay as you."  
"Gaylord."  
"That's a real name by the way."  
"Y-yeah it's your name."  
"No it's not."  
"It is now."  
"I'm sure it is." He replied sarcastically. Benrey went limp with unconsciousness, he was definitely more tired then he let on. Gordon just held him and stared up at the barely illuminated ceiling. He wasn't really thinking about anything, just basking in the situation.

...

Benrey woke up to the sound of Gordon's cringe ass alarm, it was fucking Saturday why did he never turn that shit off. It luckily woke Gordon up too because he hit the snooze button and went right back to sleep, lucky him, Benrey was wide awake now. Too startled by the noise to sleep, if he was forced to wake then Gordon would have to as well. He only had one method of waking someone up and that was to punch them in the arm, he didn't punch hard of course, just a few repetitive harsh nudges until Gordon woke up.

"Morning." Gordon mumbled, waterlogged with sleep.  
"Turn your alarm off on the weekends oh my god." Benrey hissed.  
"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Just gimme 5 more minutes." And despite his protests Gordon fell right back asleep.

Fuck it, there was no way he was about to succeed in waking him up. Why bother. Benrey sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He picked his helmet up off the floor and placed it firmly over his head, he clicked the chinstrap together. He slipped off the bed and tiredly made his way to the door, not of course before staring at himself in the mirror. His eyes still had eyebags under them as well as a persistent shadow over his eyes up to the bridge of his nose. He was still wearing his tattered blue jacket that had quickly became an article of comfort for him. Apart from the scattered scars over his body he didn't look as disheveled as when he was in the middle. He had medium black hair poking out from under his helmet. He didn't look _that_ bad... Hopefully.

Benrey pushed the open and started walking out. The 2nd floor of the house had their bedroom, the bathroom, a guest room, and the laundry room. He walked down the steps slowly to the 1st floor.

Benrey actually never wandered the house alone, too afraid of turning the corner and seeing a virus standing in front of him. They either flashed in front of him for a split second, just long enough for him to register it, or they lagged there for a good minute while staring right at him. He knew that they were dead, dead in a whole other reality, but there was some deep-seated fear that they would jump around the corner when he was alone and attack. But right now he was too tired to be bothered.

He sat on the couch, knees pulled up to his chest with PS4 controller in hand. He booted up Minecraft again, he needed to keep playing to get ahead of Gordon and beat his ass, he was deep down in a mine searching for diamonds. Once he had a diamond sword Gordon was absolutely done for. 

He sat there for a good 10 minutes before he heard the sound of Gordon walking down the stairs, his steps weren't as heavy as when he had his HEV suit but still loud enough to be heard from ages ago, Benrey preferred that to if Gordon's walking was silent. He didn't like unknown people sneaking up on him, much preferred knowing when someone was approaching.

"Hey." Gordon leaned over the couch and let one arm drape over and onto Benrey's head, "Good morning."  
"Fix your alarm."  
"I have, chill."  
"Good morning to you too." Benrey was still completely focused on the game.  
Gordon gave a small pat on the top of Benrey's helmet to indicate he was leaving, "I'm gonna make breakfast now."

Benrey paused his game, now he was more awake and alert the persistent anxiety of an unwelcome guest became more present. He stood up from the couch and walked behind him. Bad things happened when he was alone, whenever Gordon and him split up he was a perfect target- He almost bashed straight into Gordon from being too lost in thought. Those kinds of thoughts weren't healthy, he knew that. He was going to therapy or something to think logically about shit again. Physically he was safe in the real world, but mentally was still stuck back in the middle.

"Watch where you're going, man." Gordon snorted, grabbing onto Benrey's hand to lead him to the next room without running into anything else. Gordon was always warm, his hands were warm. He squeezed their hands together to soak up more of the warmth.

Benrey sat up on the kitchen counter and watched as Gordon made toast, they exchanged some words, Benrey infodumping about video games for a few minutes until the toast popped from the toaster.  
"Pop." Benrey copied the noise.

Once done Gordon took the plates and started leaving, as he expected Benrey slipped off the counter and followed behind. Gordon brought them back over to the couch, the tv still displaying the paused game. They sat right next to each other and ate, Benrey kicking his legs as he did so.

When they were done with that they piled the crumb covered plates on table and Benrey offered Gordon a controller.  
"I'm gonna beat your ass with my _diamond_ sword." He hissed playfully.  
"I got poison arrows, beat that." Gordon snickered as he picked up the controller.  
"Winner gets the others loot." Benrey challenged.  
"The stakes are high, you willing to say goodbye to your shit?"  
"Don't get your hopes up. You can't beat the most epic gamer of them all."

They both met up on top of a hill, Benrey with his diamond helmet and sword and Gordon with his iron and dyed leather armour equipped with his bow.  
"You'll regret the day you ever challenged me." Gordon claimed.  
"Say your last words idiot, hey why don't you have boots on? Feetman? Huh?"   
"Don't change the subject." Gordon grumbled.

Benrey initiated the fight with his sword swinging, Gordon jumped back and pulled his bow back, his first arrow went flying and pushed Benrey backwards. Benrey huffed and moved his character to start jumping and zig-zagging around, not stopping moving. Benrey landed a hit on Gordon and took out 3 and a half hearts. Gordon sent out rapid fire arrows, two landing on their target.

After about 2 minutes of fighting Benrey paused.  
"Yo, look at that!" Benrey yelled out, he swung his sword to the distance. Gordon tore his eyes away from his target, hesitating only with the fear he was trying to trick him. But in the distance there were 2 endermen holding blocks together.  
"They are boyfriends." Gordon admired.  
"It's us." Benrey stated. 

While Benrey was distracted Gordon pulled out his iron sword and landed the finishing blow.  
"Mwahaha." Gordon chuckled as Benrey frowned at the red lighting up his side of the screen.  
"I hate you." They huffed, "But only for a little, like a minute."  
"Aight, a minute of hatred." Gordon would call him a sore loser, which was true, but wasn't risking another minute of silent hatred.

Gordon picked up Benrey's spilled loot.   
"Is the minute over yet?"  
"Mhm, yeah I'm good now. Can I at least have my sword and helmet back tho."  
"Fiine." Gordon rolled his eyes.  
"Yesssss."  
"That's all you're getting though."

Gordon placed the controller on the arm of the couch and stood up. Benrey followed suit. He picked up the plates and deposited them back in the kitchen next to the sink, he had to get some work done on his computer, he wasn't quite sure how much he would get done with his boyfriend breathing down his neck but whatever. He walked past the table the Swag Stick was on and took a moment to just stare at it in awe.

"Swag stick." He commented.  
"Swag stick." Benrey repeated. The two chanted Swag stick for a minute.  
"This swag stick is the symbol of our love." Gordon broke the chant.  
"Symbol of our epic gamer swag love."  
"Everyone wants what we have."  
"Our swag."

That was enough of that for one day, back to work Gordon. He grabbed his computer from the coffee table and moved up to his office, the working environment was better there he supposed.  
"Why are you working on the weekend." Benrey muttered, following him to the office anyway.  
"Because I have a job."  
"Lame."  
"Yeah, yeah. Call me lame all you want but I pay all the bills here my guy."  
"BBbbBbb, I would work if I could." Benrey was currently too affected by the middle to even be a room alone, he wouldn't be able to handle a job. Also on account of him being an alien not knowing how human shit worked.

"I know. I'll do the boring work shit for now, maybe one day."  
"Maybe. I never actually had an actual job or whatever, at Black Mesa they just gave the uniform and said hey go make sure everyone's behaving and then kind of just left me there."  
"Black Mesa isn't exactly the most upstanding of organizations,"  
"Not professional of them."  
"I do not think G-man thought that part of it through very well."  
"Very unprofessional of _him_."

Gordon was sitting at his desk and was typing on a document. Benrey's back was pressed up against the back of his chair, every so often Gordon would hear him sing sweet voice. The balls of colour dissipated before he could see them.  
"Bored." Benrey commented, tapping against his helmet.  
"You don't have to be in here, man."  
"Yeah but uh, making sure you do your work. Y'know. Make sure you don't slack off or whatever."  
"I'm sure that is exactly why." He knew that Benrey just hated being on his own, "Whatever, I'm nearly done anyway."  
"You're welcome." Benrey took full responsibility for Gordon's progress. He was still bored anyhow. He took to rocking back and forth, accidentally hitting his helmet against the back of the chair every so often. He spat out random notes of sweet voice only because he liked the way it sounded. 

Gordon exited out of the now finished document and closed all of his google tabs. He shut the laptop with a relieved sigh that it was done.   
"You did it?" Benrey got back onto his feet and leaned over to look at Gordon.  
"Yup, no slacking off thank you."  
"All in a days work."

Gordon checked something in the room before trailing out.  
"Today's Saturday, yeah? Yeah. That means Joshua's coming over tomorrow." Gordon commented absentmindedly.  
"Oh dip? Pog if true"  
"Yeah it's true, but just promise you're not gonna call him a shit child again."  
"...I can try."  
"Don't like the sound of that."  
"C'mon, it's a little bit funny."  
"No."  
"Wounded. Betrayed."  
"I'm kicking you out now for your crimes."  
"This is slander. I did nothing wrong, a 30 minute YouTube essay with a concerning like to dislike ratio."  
"Pfft- anyway swearing around my child is now illegal don't make me call the cops on you."  
"Call the cops bitch, I'll seduce them."  
"You fucking what."  
"You heard me, coward."  
"Benrey, I think I am the only person you could manage to 'seduce.'"  
"You underestimate me."  
"Y'know what, I'll take your word for it."  
"Benrey _stays_ pro seducer, top of my class."  
"Please shut up."  
"No."

During their conversation they both had made their way back to the couch, again, to be fair it was a really good couch. Super comfortable, you kind of just sink into it. They shared a good five minutes of comfortable silence, the tv was on but neither of them were really watching. Then Benrey spoke up.  
"...It's over now." He commented, hugging himself, "It's ok now, right?"  
"Yeah, yeah man it's over. The viruses are dead, we're in the real world. And we have each other, it's ok now."  
"We're safe?" Benrey's hands ran over the scars he had accumulated.  
"We're safe." Gordon reached over and locked their hands together, Benrey swung them.  
"Hmph, but we're still gay as ever." He grinned, Gordon snorted.  
"Yup. I don't think that's gonna change."

Gordon wasn't lying when he said it, they were safe. None of _that_ would happen again, but just staring at the other he was sure they weren't convinced.   
"Hey, Benrey?"  
"Yeah?" He looked blankly in Gordon's direction, still swinging their interlocked hands.  
"I love you." He said. That sure as hell took them off guard them, spilling out a distinct glowing pink to blue sweet voice. Now, Gordon may not be the best at figuring out sweet voice colours. But he knew that one immediately. Benrey was suddenly too flustered to use words, it didn't matter.

"Gordon that's uh gay and cringe of you,, hehe." Benrey continued to be difficult.  
"Bleh, your sweet voice said otherwise."  
"Dammit." He huffed out a laugh, "Curse you."  
"Now who's the gay cringe one?"  
"Us."  
"Absolutely."

The tv in the background was merely static at this point, Benrey had not-so-subtlety shifted closer and closer to Gordon until he had melted up next to him. Gordon rolled his eyes and wrapped his boyfriend into a hug, they returned it. If Gordon was honest, he did not at all expect this was going to be how this ended, but, he was ok with it. At this point, he wouldn't want anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope the ending wasnt too bad uuaauuahh :')
> 
> the 'benrey touches hot shit and burns himself lol loser' was directly inspired by me touching a tray that was like 5 seconds out the oven with my bare hand during class that one time and burning myself. i am not at all a very smart individual. 
> 
> anyway mac n cheese and minecraft were the fucking first things that came 2 mind so sorry about that (maccy chese is a comfort food and yknow what i miss playing minecraft i only have the education version 😔) so yeahh
> 
> i hope this wasnt too 'cringe' to read, im very awkward with writing relationships because ive never fukinn had one so idek what tf im doing :)
> 
> i hope i potrayed everything correctly, i did do my research but you never know-
> 
> aw fuckk im rambling on,, thank you 4 reading :)


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